Saving Queen Bess
by Sariniste
Summary: Orihime, an upper-class young lady, runs away to seek adventure in 16th-century London. Along the road, she meets the gentleman Sir Aizen and accepts the ride he so kindly offers her. That was her first mistake. Fortunately, her childhood friend Sir Ichigo Kurosaki is on the lookout for her. Is he truly as staid and unadventurous as she believes? YA historical fiction AU. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 1**

**A/N:** Historical young adult adventure story based on the book _Linnet_ by Sally Watson and set in England in the year 1582. It's an adventure, not a romance, although there are various subtle hints at romantic interest at occasional points during the story.

**Summary:** Mistress Orihime Inoue, a too-trusting upper-class young lady of fourteen, ran away to seek adventure in the heart of sixteenth-century London. Along the road, she met the gentleman Sir Sousuke Aizen and accepted the ride he so kindly offered her. That was her first mistake. Her second was in accepting his hospitality, although by that time, she had little choice. Fortunately, her childhood friend Sir Ichigo Kurosaki is on the lookout for her. Is he truly as staid and unadventurous as she believes?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and entire scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on. I will deviate more extensively from the book in future chapters.

**Note:** This is an AU, and Orihime is fourteen, so she may appear a bit OOC since she is younger than she is in canon. She will act a bit sillier and more immature than she is in canon, at least in the beginning of the story; then she will mature over the course of the tale.

(Originally posted 10/29/11.)

XxXxXxX

The girl sat on a grassy bank by the Portsmouth-to-London road, her wealth of apricot-red hair falling down her back, looking forlorn and a little scared. Her heel was blistered and she had come what felt like quite a long way.

The rider, his two servants behind him, pulled his horse to a stop and eyed her with speculation. Not a waif or a gypsy, he realized almost at once. Her fine woolen cloak was lined with silk, and underneath it she wore a lace ruff and leather shoes. She was clearly of the gentry or even nobility, and this was a very unlikely place to find a young girl of her class alone. Even in this modern and civilized year of 1582, a highway was not exactly safe.

"My dear child!" exclaimed the rider. "Whatever are you doing here, and alone? May I help?"

She studied him cautiously. Her older brother Sora had told her never to speak to strangers, and Ichigo had recently remarked that she was overly gullible. Of course, Ichigo was always so overprotective, and now that she was out in the world, Orihime was prepared to demonstrate just how shrewd and sagacious she could be.

The rider was a strikingly handsome young man on a good horse, his thick brown hair swept back from his face except for a single curl. From underneath a high forehead, kind, deep brown eyes gazed down upon her. His hose and doublet and short fashionable cloak were made of the finest cloth and cut, his ruff was enormous, his gloves were embroidered, he had three long feathers in his cap; he could not possibly be a gypsy or vagrant or highwayman. She decided to trust him.

"I'm having an adventure," she confided shyly. "Only it's not turning out precisely as I'd intended, because of the blisters on my heel, and London being just a trifle farther from Karakura than I'd thought it to be. And," she added with a small sigh, "I am hungry."

He failed to notice this hint, but sat regarding her with an expression of quizzical amusement. "I feel quite certain your family can't approve of this adventure," he decided. "Are you a runaway, my poppet?"

Orihime drew herself up with quiet dignity. "I'm not anyone's poppet," she said severely. "I'll have you know I'm fourteen."

"I do beg your pardon!" The man swept his plumed hat off his head in a gratifying manner. "Milady," he said with a deep bow. "I should have seen at once you're not a child."

"It's all right," Orihime said with a sigh. "My older brother does the same thing. I want to go see the Queen, and he refuses to take me." She turned large grey eyes on the man. "He says I'm bound to say something rude or silly to the French or Spanish ambassadors—" She paused to consider this, then said with a frown, "Well, I probably would, too, seeing as they keep plotting with Mary of Scotland to depose our Queen and turn England over to the Pope!" She scowled. "Those Papists, the traitors! I do wish I could save our Queen from them, don't you?"

He looked fascinated. "What did you have in mind, exactly?"

Orihime sighed. "Well, I guess I don't know. And I probably won't, stuck out here on this road, until I get to London this afternoon."

The rider looked rather confused, as they were still quite far from London and certainly not within a few hours walking distance. Orihime, however, didn't notice the confusion. She was eying the traveler speculatively. He looked quite wealthy enough to treat a young lady to dinner, and she was ravenous.

"I don't suppose you have any food in your saddlebag?" she suggested delicately.

The man immediately apologized. "It was most remiss of me not to offer you food at once. The truth is, I'm so fascinated by you that I've forgot my manners." He gestured to the darker-skinned of his two servants, who began fishing in the saddlebag. "Tell me, Mistress, would it sound too much like a bribe if I offered you food in exchange for hearing all about you?"

She giggled. "Well, if you put it that way, yes." She put a finger to her mouth. "But if you said, 'Please sit and sup with me, fair maiden, whilst I hear your story,' then it would be quite acceptable. Only at first I think you should introduce yourself to me, so I won't be talking to a strange man, which I'm not allowed to do, you know." She looked up at him expectantly.

He at once took his foot off the bank and made a deep bow, with flourishes. "Sir Sousuke Aizen, of Seireitei Hall, at your service, Milady."

She leaped to her feet and curtseyed, wincing as the blistered heels protested. "And I'm Mistress Orihime Inoue, of Karakura, and give you good den, Sir Aizen, so now everything's quite proper, isn't it?"

But he was shaking his head at her, frowning. "My dear young lady, you are far too trusting! How do you know I'm telling the truth? I could be a liar and the greatest rogue in Christendom."

The more slender of his two servants, a pale-skinned young man with silver hair, paused in the act of handing his master a parcel wrapped in a napkin and looked startled. Orihime stared, a trifle shaken just for a moment. "Well, you don't look like a rogue," she said uncertainly. "Or sound like one, either."

"Certainly not," he replied. "It's a rogue's business not to. I could be six kinds of knave, for all that." And he frowned at her.

She stared back, entranced. "What six kinds?" she asked.

The silver-haired servant choked slightly. Sir Aizen began counting on his fingers. "Kidnapper," he suggested ominously. "Murderer. Highwayman. Coney-catcher. Forger. Horse thief. I might be engaged in selling state secrets and then blackmailing the men who told them to me. And," he added for good measure, "I might run a kynchin school, for training cutpurses, burglars, pickpockets, and ambush thieves." With another bow he politely handed Orihime the packet of food.

"Cold goose and white bread," exclaimed Orihime happily as she opened the packet. "If you were all of those things, or even just one or two, you wouldn't tell me about them," she pointed out, waving a wing at him. "This is delicious goose, Sir Aizen, and I'm much obliged to you."

"My pleasure." His deep brown eyes twinkled kindly at her. "If I were all those things, I might tell you so just to disarm your suspicions."

Orihime smiled around a mouthful of goose. "That seems rather unlikely. Although, I almost wish you were someone like that. It would be quite interesting." She giggled, and then sobered as she bit off another piece of goose. "Ichigo is always telling me I have a wild imagination and think of very unlikely things." She sighed and her eyes took on a faraway cast for a moment.

Sir Aizen rested his booted foot on the grassy bank again and flicked his riding whip through his fingers. "And who is Ichigo?" he inquired with friendly interest.

"Oh, he's sort of an unrelated god-brother. That is, his parents were my godparents, and when my parents died and Sora had to take care of me, and since Ichigo's mother had died too, it made sense for us to end up spending a lot of time together. I was visiting Ichigo and his father just now." She sighed. "He keeps telling me that I need to be protected, and that I'm always getting into trouble without him around." She looked off into the distance and blushed. "He's always so serious, and says that he feels like my big brother…" She frowned thoughtfully and looked a little sad as she bit into the goose again.

As she was speaking, Sir Aizen sat himself on the bank beside her to listen to her, with an air of being infinitely entertained and quite willing to sit beside her all day, and not caring in the least if his fine mauve hose and yellow trunks were stained or not. His servants, meanwhile, crossed the road and tethered the horses in the shade, sitting down under a tree with an air of stolid patience.

Sir Aizen cocked his head to one side with flattering interest. "So what leads you to be on the road to London this fine day?" he inquired.

"Well," she said, "you see, every summer I go to Ichigo's house or he comes to mine, and this summer it was my turn to visit him. And it turned out that our family friend, Lord Byakuya, was visiting Ichigo and his family, and said that he would be going later to London for a visit. So of course I said I wanted to come along." She looked faintly annoyed and sighed. "But they said I was too young and it wouldn't be safe." She frowned. "Ichigo in particular thought it was a bad idea."

"The nerve of the fellow!" exclaimed Sir Aizen. "What could possibly happen to you in London?"

She looked at him with approval. At last, someone who understood. "Of course. So instead, I waited for Lord Byakuya to leave, and then I left a note saying that I had asked Lord Byakuya if he would at least take me home on his way to London, and he had agreed. So you see, Sora thinks I'm still with Ichigo's family, and Ichigo thinks I've gone home to Sora, so now no one's worrying about me." She paused to see what Sir Aizen thought of all this.

"That's very clever and considerate of you," he said admiringly. "But what are you going to do now?"

She regarded her aching feet, not quite as proud of herself as she had been. "Well, when I get to London I'm going to go to my cousin's house. His friend is getting married, and I thought maybe he would invite me to the wedding…" She sighed. "There is just one thing that worries me a tiny bit. It's quite a formal wedding, and when I just show up without a letter or warning or anything, do you think they might take it amiss?" She pushed her hood further back on her head and looked anxiously at her new friend, who was stroking his chin and looking decidedly odd.

"My dear Mistress Inoue!" he said. "How very fortunate that I came by! Have you any notion how far it still is to London? It's over thirty miles; I doubt you've come more than six or eight. Moreover, you are quite right not to want to arrive at your cousin's unannounced, much less dirty and on foot. I doubt you'd get past the first footman. No, you had best come with me."

"I don't think I had best do that at all," retorted Orihime, turning prim. "Sora wouldn't approve."

"He wouldn't approve of your being here to begin with," he reminded her. "Much less your spending the night on the road alone."

Orihime considered it, along with the prospect of remaining here and seeing him and his stalwart servants ride on without her, leaving her alone. She decided to compromise.

"I'll ride with you to London," she decided, "and then you can just let me off at my cousin's house."

XxXxXxX

Orihime was astounded by London. Tall narrow houses, each story jutting out farther than the one below, staggered drunkenly along the road, pressed up against each other but not in a straight line. Her eyes got wider and wider until at last she turned to peer up at the new friend who was so kindly sharing his horse with her. "Marry; I never realized London was so big."

He laughed. "My dear child, we're not in London yet. This is called Southwark. You can see the playhouses and bear pit up ahead. We won't be in London until we've crossed the Thames."

Orihime fell into an awed silence, thankful that she was not, after all, on foot and alone.

It wasn't until dusk that they finally crossed the London Bridge, so built with houses and shops that it didn't seem like a bridge at all. And then they were in London Town. Orihime looked around the crowded streets, and swallowed hard around a lump. She wasn't afraid, but the lump just happened to be there.

"Thank you very much for the ride, Sir Aizen, and now I must go and find my cousins." She moved to slip down from the horse—but not very urgently. It was a relief to feel his lean strong hand preventing it.

"Not so fast there, my dear. Have you the least idea where your cousins live? Or if they are even in London at all?"

Orihime started to say yes. Then she started to say that she could just ask someone. Then she looked around at the gathering dark. Torches began to flare here and there as a man-at-arms led his master down the narrow and somehow menacing streets. The gutters down the center stank, and people lurked in the shadows and corners in a most unnerving way. She changed her mind about asking any of them and shook her hooded head forlornly. But then the comforting solidness of Sir Aizen cheered her up.

"You'll find out for me, won't you?"

"Not tonight," he said firmly. "Quite out of the question, my dear. You had best come along home with me and have something to eat, and then we'll decide what is to be done."

Orihime looked around once more and decided she had better go along with his suggestion. The streets were distinctly unsavory, and not nearly as glamorous as she had expected the streets of London to be. But presently they came to a somewhat better district, and then crossed the huge width of Chepeside Street, and then came to a stop before a fine tall house with a wall in front.

"My home," said Sir Aizen. "I call it Las Noches. Will you come in and do me the honor of supping with me?"

Orihime looked up at him. It really wasn't at all proper. She thought of what Sora would say. Then she thought of a hot bath and food, and decided none of Sora's warnings could possibly apply to Sir Aizen, who was already an old and trusted friend.

"Well, all right," she agreed. "But you know, it isn't at all proper. You won't tell anyone, will you?"

Sir Aizen laughed suddenly, a delicious, deeply amused chuckle. "No, I promise not to tell a soul," he said, and lifted her from the horse.

XxXxXxX

"She hasn't gone home!" insisted Ichigo. "I tell you, she's run away!"

His father looked at him blankly. Ichigo's obsession to protect Orihime would be far easier on everyone else, he thought, as soon as the two of them were old enough to marry, which was clearly inevitable. After all, who else could put up with either of them?

"But Ichigo," said Isshin with unusual patience, "she said she was going home. Her note says—" He began to read. "'I have decided to go home along with Lord Byakuya after all, and there be no time to say farewell or pack, for he be leaving presently so I bid thee good den and fare ye well, and I shall send anon for my clothing.'"

Ichigo snorted. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Of course," said Isshin, now truly mystified. "Why not? Where else would she have gone?"

"To London," returned his son.

"Naw," Isshin insisted. "I mean, I know Orihime gets some fairly crazy ideas, and her grasp on reality isn't, well, isn't completely secure. But surely not even Orihime would do anything so mad as running away to London!"

"She would. You know she would. She has, I tell you!" Ichigo stood with his feet planted apart, his characteristic scowl etched on his face more deeply than usual. His brown eyes flashed and his bright orange hair stuck out in all directions. His father looked at him skeptically.

"I don't like that look in your eye, Ichigo," he said. "What have you decided to do, and don't you think you should have consulted with me before deciding it?"

Ichigo snorted. "I'm going to London to find her."

His father looked at him, appalled. "You don't even know she's there!"

"I know she started for there," he told them stubbornly. "I hope to catch up before she gets very far. She's so trusting, there's just no telling what trouble she might get into. Probably has already," he added gloomily. "So it doesn't really matter what you think, Dad, because I'm going. Orihime needs me. I shall take Chad along, and go stay with Lord Ishida and Uryuu. Last time they were here, they invited me to come visit them whenever I please. Remember?"

Isshin scratched his head and scowled. "Ichigo, I swear you're as fanciful as Orihime and quite a bit more headstrong. She's safely on her way home, you may be sure of it. No, no; prithee don't argue. Go ahead, since you're so set on it, and have a good time in London. You and young Ishida have always got along well, and he might have a calming effect on you. But you mustn't expect me to start writing frantic letters to Sora, for his sister will reach him long before any letters could, and he'll only think we've quite lost our reason."

Ichigo frowned. Then he thought again and shrugged. Perhaps, after all, it was best not to alarm Orihime's brother yet. Perhaps he'd find her still on the road. In any case, there was little Sora could do that he and Uryuu couldn't do sooner. Yes, better to wait.

"All right," he agreed suddenly, rather to Isshin's surprise. "Don't fret yourself, then, but I'm off at once. Tell cook to put up some food for us, will you? In half an hour, please." Then he left the room so abruptly that he seemed to leave a vacuum behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 2**

**A/N: **This is an IchiHime historical adventure story, based on the book _Linnet_ by Sally Watson and set in England in the year 1582. Reposting due to **yoruyoseihime's** request!

In this chapter, Orihime learns what is behind the mask of the man she knows as Sir Aizen. And Ichigo makes progress in his search for her. In this story, Aizen has two houses in London, one called Las Noches (which is more elegant), and one called Hueco Mundo (the home for lower hollows, the Arrancar, and certain of the Espada).

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

**Note:** This is an AU, and Orihime is fourteen, so she may appear a bit OOC since she is younger than she is in canon. She will act a bit sillier, brasher, and more immature than she is in canon, at least in the beginning of the story; then she will mature over the course of the tale.

(Reposted 10/11/2014.)

XxXxXxX

Orihime was exhausted and somewhat overwhelmed by all the events that had happened in the space of only a few hours. She had looked around her only briefly as Sir Aizen gave her into the care of a young, dark-haired maid named Momo. Las Noches was a large, rich house, with long, whitewashed corridors and new bright tapestries on all the walls. But it wasn't until Momo had helped her to freshen up and she had satisfied her hunger that Orihime looked at it with much attention. It was rather larger and whiter than her own home, and not welcoming enough for Orihime's taste. But then, this was London, where it was to be expected that styles would be much grander than in her provincial home.

She yawned. Sir Aizen had served her a goblet of very sweet wine, with no water added, quite as if she were grown up. But it was making her sleepy, and she was already tired from a long day of walking and riding. She stretched her eyelids widely and tried to order her thoughts.

"I've just had an idea," she said to Sir Aizen. "You can just take me to see Queen Bess, and she'll find my cousins for me. She and my mother were best friends when they were thirteen, and—"

"You're jesting!" Sir Aizen interrupted her with an expression that suggested he was finding her just a trifle less amusing than he had. "My dear young lady, do you know what you're asking? Do you know how complicated it is to get an audience with the Queen? Do you even know where she is?"

Orihime blinked. "Well, at Whitehall Palace, isn't she?"

"Possibly. Or perhaps at another palace. Hampton Court, or Nonesuch, or Windsor, or Greenwich, or Eltham, or possibly on one of her Progressions: say in Dorset or Kent or Gloucestershire." He cocked his head at her and grinned. "I'm no magician, my dear. Besides, I have a much better idea. Sit down and listen to it."

Orihime sat politely on the stool he indicated, but she was still set on the idea of seeing Queen Bess.

"How would you like to stay and visit me until we find your cousins?" he asked her with a smile that was both charming and reasonable.

"Well, I don't think I'd better," said Orihime with a nervous laugh. "I've already told you, it—"

"Yes, yes; I remember," he interrupted hastily. "Not proper. But you'll be quite safe, you know; and considering that I gave you my luncheon, don't you think you should do something to please me?"

"As soon as I find my cousins, we'll invite you to dinner," she told him kindly. "And Sora will want to meet you too, as soon as he knows all about it."

"Aye, I'm sure of that," he agreed with such dry amusement that Orihime stared. A guffaw from the smiling, silver-haired footman was cut short by a sharp glance from his master, and Orihime stared harder. What very odd servants! She began to feel just slightly uneasy.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll go right away," she said, standing up.

"But I do mind," said her host smoothly. He gestured, and a pair of hands pressed firmly upon her shoulders and sat her down again.

She leaned forward and twisted her head, to see the smiling footman standing behind her stool, looking quite amused. Neither his face nor his manner was at all what she would have expected. Her unease increased.

"What—what are you doing?" she asked, aghast. "Sir Aizen, don't your servants know their places?"

"They obey my orders," he replied evenly. "Now turn around, young lady, and listen to me. I'm going to put my invitation in different words. You are my guest as long as I choose to keep you so. Is that perfectly clear?"

Orihime started to bounce up with a squeal of alarm. The hands pushed her down once more. She instantly slithered all the way to the floor in a tangle of kirtle and petticoat, rolled over once, scrambled to her feet just out of reach of the surprised footman, and with a rip of stood-on lace, her full skirts bunched in her hands, rushed toward the door. The dark-skinned servant appeared in it, blocking her way, and Momo behind him. There was no chance at all of getting past. Moreover, Orihime was feeling extraordinarily odd. Noises swelled and boomed in an unreal way, and everything looked peculiarly dreamlike. Bewildered, she half turned back toward Sir Aizen.

"You're teasing me, aren't you?" she suggested doubtfully. And then she felt hideously dizzy, and the floor swooped toward her in an outrageous manner. And then she stopped noticing anything at all.

XxXxXxX

She awoke painfully and coldly and in utter bewilderment. Why did her head hurt, and what was this dank, evil-smelling place? She squinted into the dimness, lit only by a small, high unglassed window. It was a barren garret of a room, containing only a single three-legged stool, and a slop-jar, and the unsavory pallet upon which she lay. She closed her eyes again, certain she was ill of a fever.

"Sora!" she croaked peevishly. "Ichigo!" And then the sound of her own voice caused her to remember everything—and to wish passionately that she didn't. Oblivion was much to be preferred, particularly when one's head ached so badly.

Her call was answered by a creaking door and a hoarse girl-voice in the strange London accents she had heard on the streets last night. "'Oo yer calling, luv? Me name's Nel."

Orihime focused painfully between waves of nausea, and finally made out a gaunt, ragged figure. It knelt beside her pallet, and an equally gaunt and grimy face appeared half hidden amid wildly uncombed dirty greenish hair. A foolish smile displayed stained teeth with a gaping space here and there, and Orihime drew back in shock.

"Where am I?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Don't be afeared," said Nel earnestly. "Yer in Hueco Mundo, and I won't 'urt yer. Nobody won't 'urt yer if Aizen-sama says not, 'owever much they wants. They dassn't. 'E'd slit their gizzards."

"Huh?" asked Orihime, blank.

"We all does wot Aizen-sama says," Nel explained. "'E's the Upright Man. See?"

Orihime didn't. She'd never heard of such a thing, and grunted questioningly and querulously.

"'E's the cleverest and strongest and 'ardest, so 'e's the Upright Man and we all does wotever 'e says," Nel repeated carefully. "If 'e said ter kill yer, us would. But 'e said ter take care of yer," she added reassuringly. "'N if 'e said ter take care of yer, 'e don't want yer 'urt, does 'e?" She patted Orihime's head and looked terribly pleased with herself for figuring out this complicated bit of reasoning.

Orihime winced, and Nel looked sympathetic.

"Yer 'ead 'urts! Coo, there's a big lump on it! That must be from where yer fell on the floor," she concluded with the pride of one who just made her second brilliant deduction in as many minutes. "It'll go down soon. Be yer 'ungry?"

"No!" said Orihime as forcefully as she could without causing her head to break instantly into separate pieces. "I'm cold, and I'm thirsty, and... I want to be taken home," she finished in tones about as commanding as those of a baby rabbit.

"Well, I can't do that," Nel told her comfortably. "But I'll get yer somefing ter drink and 'appen a bit of blanket, and a wet rag for yer 'ead, and then you'll feel better, see if yer don't."

In no condition to argue, Orihime closed her eyes, and soon submitted to a cold cloth on the head, a grimy blanket, and a single spoonful of a hot but revolting broth.

"I thought yer might like somefing ter eat," said Nel benevolently, spooning it into Orihime's feebly resisting mouth.

"Ugh!" sputtered Orihime, turning her head away. "No more!"

"Not 'ungry?" Nel began to gulp the rejected offering. "'Twas me own supper," she confessed. "But I thought yer ought ter 'ave it if yer wanted it." She went away contentedly.

When she returned an hour later, Orihime was shivering violently, from cold, shock, fear, and the aftereffects of the knockout drug in the wine. Nel stared at her in concern. It seemed clear that the little lady was far from well. But Aizen-sama had said she was to be kept prisoner in that room until he returned. And Aizen-sama's commands were never questioned. Nel considered. She didn't think Aizen-sama would like the prisoner to die, but he had neglected to give any commands about what to do should she seem ill. No use asking anyone else. Loly wouldn't care, and Ulquiorra wouldn't say, and the others wouldn't know, even if they were here. And most of them were either at work or in gaol. Clearly things were up to Nel.

Orihime's teeth were chattering. Nel held the rushlight closer and by the feeble flicker of its light she could see that the grey eyes were glazed and nearly closed; the face very white; and the lips bluish. It seemed to Nel that the best thing to do would be to get the young lady warm. Encouraged by this idea, she went and fetched all of her own clothing and every ragged blanket or cloak she could find, piled them on top of Orihime, crawled in beside her, hugged the shivering figure close, and having done all she could think of, slept.

XxXxXxX

When Orihime woke up much later, still miserable but much warmer and less nauseous, she found herself torn between disbelief and fear. Mostly disbelief. The dingy room was so altogether unlikely that if she shut her eyes she could easily think it was all her imagination. Then she jumped, scratched violently, and flung herself off the filthy pallet, still scratching. It wasn't a nightmare at all! It was as real as louse-bites could make it! Real as the shabby, dirty chemise and petticoats that had replaced the fine clothes she had been wearing. Real as the sounds of footsteps up rickety stairs...

Orihime snatched the grimy gray blanket on the pallet, wrapped it around herself, and stared at the door, which was making sounds of being unbolted. Her head had stopped aching and she had a number of things she wanted to say to Sir Aizen.

And Sir Aizen obligingly appeared, wearing an aura of good humor about him—and also wearing, confusingly, the sober trunk-hose and furred gown of a respectable London merchant instead of the gentleman's dress he had worn before. Orihime regarded him with a frown.

"How could you do this to me?" she said. "Please give me my things back and let me go! You lied to me! I don't believe you're a gentleman at all; you're a scoundrel and a rogue!"

Sir Aizen regarded her calmly with a slight smile. "Why, 'tis quite a spirited young princess I've netted!" he observed with approval. "So much the better, then."

Orihime stared at him. If it wasn't a dream, then it had to be a mistake or a joke—or perhaps there was some perfectly sensible explanation. There had to be! She valiantly swallowed the lump in her throat and reminded herself that she frequently imagined dire things, and they usually turned out not dire at all, or if they were, she and Ichigo were in them together and could help each other out of trouble. But this really was by far the direst thing she had ever imagined, and Ichigo wasn't with her at all, but back in his house, thinking her safely on the way home.

It was a joke! It must be. That was why Sir Aizen was smiling.

"I don't think it's the least bit funny," she told him coldly.

Sir Aizen said nothing. He merely seated himself on the tottery three-legged stool and chuckled.

"I do wish you'd stop that!" she said. "You're behaving like a vile knave!"

He smiled, and nearly began laughing again, but controlled himself. "I do beg your pardon, Orihime," he said politely. "As a matter of fact, I am a vile knave. I told you so when we met, if you'll remember, and you wouldn't believe me. It's very discouraging, you know. I hardly ever tell the truth, and when I do, it's disbelieved. You've disillusioned me so that I may never try it again."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Orihime began, and then stopped. His deep brown eyes were twinkling in the most disconcerting way, and she was no longer quite so sure that it was a nice twinkle.

"Don't go on teasing me in that horrid way!" she begged. "I know it's a joke—but—" She stopped.

He was regarding her with the quizzical smile she was beginning to detest, and shaking his head slightly. Panic leaped again into Orihime's throat, and she stared wide-eyed.

"But—but, why? I've never done anything to you except eat your goose, and you gave me that; and you mustn't go around drugging people and stealing them away and locking them up in horrid dirty places with bugs! And besides," she remembered with a fresh sense of grievance, "that girl Nel said you were an upright man, and she's quite wrong, for anyone less upright and honest than you I never saw in my life. You deceived me!"

This had the effect of amusing him further; he leaned against the patched gray wall and laughed out loud this time. Orihime sat very still and straight, clutching the dirty blanket around her and staring at him with the sense of nightmare so strong that she was able to wonder at her own calm.

He stopped laughing and sat regarding her thoughtfully for a moment. When he spoke again, it was in the grave and courteous tones of yesterday.

"Lackaday, I do beg your pardon for my ill manners, Orihime," he said. "You'll forgive me, won't you?"

"I will if you'll bring back my clothes and take me to my cousins," she said promptly, cheering up.

He shook his head again, regretful but firm, over folded arms. "Now why should I go to all the trouble of stealing you just to take you back again, Orihime?" he asked.

"It's not Orihime, it's Mistress Inoue. I think you might at least use proper respect! And I do wish you'd stop trying to appear reasonable, because that's what you're not being. Even the wickedest people ought to have a reason for doing vile things, besides just being vile and wicked, you know."

She blinked back sudden tears.

"But I have got a reason," he told her. "Now don't start crying, Orihime," he went on hastily, seeing that her lip was starting to quiver. "You know, it's most monstrous churlish of you not even to listen to my explanation." He looked hurt and reproachful, thereby at once putting Orihime in the wrong again.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I can't help it," she sniffled. "And besides, you haven't explained anything except that you did it on purpose and you won't take me back, and I still don't see why anyone should call you an upright man."

"Please don't start me laughing again!" he begged, still imperviously good-natured. How Orihime wished she could pierce that armor and banish the smile! Clearly, futile anger wouldn't. And now, disarmingly, he was talking as if she were a grown lady and his trusted friend. Despite herself, Orihime listened.

"I will be quite candid with you, my dear," he said. "When Nel calls me the Upright Man, she means that I'm King of the underworld."

Orihime frowned, puzzled. "Underworld? You mean like Hades when he stole poor Persephone? But that's only an old Greek myth, you know, and you needn't think—"

He clutched at his hair in a way that people frequently did when they had been talking to Orihime for a while. "Stubble it, Orihime!" he groaned. "Hold your tongue, do, and let me explain. The underworld, my dear, is the part of London that your class wouldn't know about. The poor and criminal. The people who beg or steal; those who don't know any other trade, and those who don't want to. The Upright Man is their king, who trains and protects them when he can, and arranges begging licenses—genuine or forged. He's the head of the thieves' guild, if you choose. Does that shock you?"

"Well, it most certainly does!" Orihime's eyes were round and horrified. "Why, that's not honest! And don't you dare laugh at me again," she warned him, for his lip was twitching once more. "It's perfectly true and not a bit funny!"

"No, it's not funny," he agreed, suddenly serious again. "Tell me, Orihime, what do you think all those people who must either steal or starve should do? Starve?"

She blinked but refused to be sidetracked. "Well, I'm perfectly sure it's wrong to steal. And I still don't see what you wanted me for."

He surveyed her for a long moment, his brown eyes narrowed and thoughtful. Orihime stared back at him. Whatever he wanted, she decided, she would have nothing to do with it.

"It was your own idea, really," he told her suddenly.

"It wasn't!" She stiffened in renewed indignation. "I never—"

"Didn't you say you wanted to help save Queen Bess from the Papist plotters?" he demanded, accusing. "Or were you just saying it because it sounded well?"

"No! Yes! I mean, well of course I do, but—"

"Well, that's precisely what I mean to let you do!" He beamed at her as one bestowing a rare favor, and confident that she could never refuse it. Nor could she.

"Truly?" she asked. "Well, why didn't you say so? Tell me about it then! Is it France or Spain or the Pope or Queen Mary or all of them? The idea, pretending Mary has a right to the throne when she's only the granddaughter of Queen Bess's aunt! Sora says Mary always claims she doesn't know a thing about any of the plots, but—"

"Do you want to hear about this one or not?" he demanded. Orihime blinked and nodded. "Then close your chaffer," he commanded cheerfully. Orihime blinked again in the dimness, but by now everything was so unlikely that it all seemed almost ordinary, so she sighed and hugged the blanket her and subsided.

"As a matter of fact, I can't tell you much about it at all," he confessed shamelessly, and then raised a graceful hand as Orihime frowned again. "Now don't get in a tweak, Orihime; if I knew all about it, I wouldn't need you. It's simply that in my—er—role as a gentleman named Sir Aizen, I've become quite friendly with some of our leading Roman Catholic families."

Orihime curled her lip. "Don't sneer, Orihime, they have the virtue of loyal steadfastness—to their religion if not to their Queen and country. One must choose, I suppose. Yamamoto, of course, would like to have all their ilk executed at once, but—"

Orihime dropped her eyes.

"But Queen Elizabeth won't hear of it," he finished blandly, shaking his head at such regrettable soft-heartedness. "So, as I say, I'm friends with them, but not trusted enough to be confided in, or even to visit as frequently as I'd like. Now, it's just possible you could be of some help there..." He trailed off into a reflective silence, while Orihime sat, now enthralled and expectant as she listened to his words, her coppery hair a rippled mantle over the foulness of the blanket. There was an odd expression in Sir Aizen's eyes as he looked at her, but Orihime didn't notice this, for she was thrilling to being at last treated as a responsible grown-up and told important things. She warmed to him again. However badly he had behaved, at least it was from the best of possible reasons.

"What am I to do?" she asked, as the silence continued.

He came out of his thoughts. "Do? Well, now, wait a bit. There are preparations to make. You'll bide here for a while like a good girl, won't you?"

But Orihime's restored approval and tractability didn't extend to accepting lice and bedbugs cheerfully. Her face darkened. "Well, I don't see why," she objected. "And I don't see why you had to steal me and lock me up here, either, when you might have just simply asked me to help, you know. No gentleman should ever behave in such a cullionly way!"

"As a matter of fact, I'm not a gentleman," he admitted with his charming smile. "The 'Sir' is an illusion, as well as Seireitei Hall."

Orihime digested this. "Oh. Well, but you still haven't explained why you brought me to this vile place. I don't at all wish to stay here. Why can't I stay at Las Noches?"

He stood up with sudden briskness. "I'm sorry, Orihime, but there are reasons why I can't keep you in Las Noches. I shan't argue the point," he said in a voice used to commanding. "You'll stay here in Hueco Mundo, Orihime, and get acquainted with my Arrancar. I think it will broaden your outlook, you know."

Orihime hugged the offensive blanket closer about her, feeling suddenly cold despite the tiny slit of summer sky showing in the window gap above a rooftop. "I don't know what you mean by Arrancar."

"They're my scholars and apprentices," he told her jovially. "Didn't I tell you I had a school for knavery?"

"I'm not going to live with criminals!" she cried, standing up abruptly. "I'll go home, and not help you at all!"

"You'd refuse to help save your Queen?" He looked shocked. Orihime sat down again, deflated and feeling that somehow she was being maneuvered in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. "Besides," he added with great gentleness, "you can't go home without my help. You're in the midst of the London underworld, Orihime. If you leave without escort, you'd be quite likely to find yourself a corpse in the Thames, that might or might not be washed ashore somewhere downriver."

Orihime simply stared at him, horror in her eyes. He nodded affably. "Aye. So be a good little princess and do as I say."

"No!" said Orihime at once.

He arose. "Oh, I think you'll change your mind, my dear. I must be off about my business now, and you just make yourself at home. Nel's finding you some clothing; you'll wear that for the nonce and keep your pretty things for later."

"No," said Orihime again, rather less decisively.

"Oh, yes, you will. And perhaps you can teach upper-class manners to my Arrancar to keep yourself occupied; it might be very useful to them. Just put your mind to it, and you'll quite enjoy your stay here, Orihime."

XxXxXxX

"I rode hard for London to try to overtake her," said Ichigo. "Chad followed more slowly, asking along the way. But I haven't found a trace, and—"

"Soft you, now," said Lord Ryuuken Ishida with an air of slight disdain. "You'll put your wits awry if you go on like that." He waved at Ichigo's flushed face. "You have too much choler, belike; it goes to the head. Still, as you're so upset about this girl... Do you really want me to send a messenger to her brother?" He glanced briefly at his son Uryuu, sitting on a bench by the window, as if hoping to get him to talk some sense into the orange-haired youth.

But Ichigo's nod was unnecessary; his face said it for him. It wore a look of implacable obstinacy that always caused those who knew him well to sigh and give way.

Lord Ishida did likewise. "Oh, very well. Though we'll find, I warrant, that she's safe at home by now, and all your excitement for nought. To tell you the truth, I don't see what makes you think she ran away at all; you haven't a shred of real evidence, you know."

Ichigo turned his head to stare out of the window. Lord Ishida's was one of the splendid great houses just west of London Town, on the Strand. The gardens and southern windows overlooked the Thames with its bustle of traffic, but this northern room looked over the busy road between London and Whitehall Palace, and to the row of mean houses across the road. He didn't really see them. He was wondering how to explain how he knew about Orihime without any need for evidence. What he had instead was his intuition about her.

He had always had this, since the summer he was six and had gone to visit her family and first met the four-year-old Orihime who was already showing signs of driving her family straight into Bedlam. Her parents had been quite distressed about her; until Ichigo showed up, only Sora was able to keep her from injuring herself or getting into all sorts of trouble. It wasn't that she was naughty, really. Ichigo had understood this at once, although he couldn't have put it into words. It was merely that she had a nature that was at once adventurous, literal-minded, and trusting. As a consequence, she believed everything anyone said or did, and never looked before she leaped. She had not yet learned to curb her headstrong impulses with a little common sense. She was always getting into scrapes, which considerably brightened Ichigo's life— though he would not have told her so for worlds.

By now, with ten years' practice, he knew her mind almost as if he lived in it, and he knew she had run off to London—or at least started out with that intention. But how could he explain this to Lord Ishida and Uryuu, who simply didn't know her the way he did?

He sighed. "I'll be most grateful, Sir, if you will send the message," he said.

"Of course, of course," said Lord Ishida, instantly turning his attention to other matters. "I'll have it seen to at once. Now forget this nonsense, and you boys enjoy yourselves. Go hawking. Go riding. Go courting." He nodded at his son, who pushed his spectacles up his nose and sighed. Then he left the room with a distracted air, hoping Uryuu could take young Ichigo's mind off this silly notion of his.

Ichigo flicked his brown eyes at Uryuu, and turned to stare out of the window again. The Strand was busier and more built-up than last time he was here. Already it was overcrowded. And in all those throngs of people—Ichigo set his lips and pushed a wave of sick fear for Orihime back down again. If only his intuition could be more precise!

Uryuu had been thinking, and now raised a brooding eye to his friend. "A pox on it," he pronounced. "You're insane, Ichigo; the girl can't have come here at all. It wouldn't be sensible. "

"You can't really call Orihime sensible," sighed Ichigo. "But I have to protect her. Come on, get your cloak; we're going to go visiting any of Orihime's cousins she might possibly have come to see."

Uryuu looked unhappy. "I don't like that branch of the family; some of those Inoue cousins are downright unpleasant. Anyhow, you don't want to go visiting at this hour. I thought we were going hawking."

Ichigo upset the bench and dumped him off, with no regard whatever for the fine new trunk-hose of apple green slashed with lilac and saffron. "Come on!" he said.

XxXxXxX

**A/N:** As always, I very much welcome constructive criticism. I do think Orihime is a bit OOC and immature here, but I am planning to have her change over the course of the story. And part of it is due to the nature of the AU; she is an upper-class young lady of 16th century England here. Aizen as well is a bit OOC, somewhat more affable and friendly than he is in canon, though still just as devious. I would like to hear what you think, good or bad. Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 3**

**A/N: **Rewritten and reposted on 10/18/14.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 11/22/11, reposted 10/18/14.)

XxXxXxX

"That's better," said Aizen, smiling kindly at Orihime in the shabby and none-too-clean attire Nel had provided. "It's almost a smile."

Orihime stared at him. "No, it isn't!" she said immediately. "Why am I still locked up in this filthy room? When do I start foiling the plot against the Queen? That's really the only reason I'm—"

"Leave it all to me," said Aizen, so confidently and with such a benevolent smile that she was almost mollified. Not that she was about to let him know it. Even though he treated her as more of a grown-up at times, she found herself fiercely missing Ichigo and his overprotectiveness. In fact, she was finding that being out alone in the world by herself was not nearly as pleasant as having Ichigo around, even if he still treated her like a little sister rather than as a grown woman the way she would have preferred. She sighed. Adventures were certainly not the same without Ichigo around to share them, in any event. Why, even bedbugs, lice, and filth would not be so bad if Ichigo were there. She suddenly missed everything about him: his bright, spiky orange hair, his concerned brown eyes, his constant gentleness toward her and his scowl and fierceness toward everybody else. She found herself wishing that she had not been quite so clever about throwing him and everybody off the track when she ran away.

Aizen was still smiling at her, kindly and masterful. "Now I shall show you the house and my Arrancar," he said. "You'll see what a gentle shepherd I am."

"I think you're a complete villain," Orihime informed him, eyes narrowing.

Aizen looked hurt. "How ungrateful of you, when I'm giving you hospitality, and devoting my previous time to showing you around, and I've even promised to let you help save the Queen from her enemies. Really, Orihime, you wound me deeply."

"Well, I'm sorry," began Orihime uncertainly, a little dashed by this. Was she behaving in a thankless manner? "But you did put me here to start with, and lock me up, when I don't want to live in this house at all," she reminded him defensively.

He chuckled, and opened the door for her with a flourish and bow suitable for a Duchess. "You haven't seen it yet," he reminded her reasonably. "Only one room. Now here is the girls' wardrobe room." He indicated a large dim chamber filled with chests and boxes and with assorted clothing hanging from walls and beams. "Beyond is another for males. We have all kinds of outfits here, to produce anyone from beggar to merchant, shopkeeper to noble lord or lady."

Orihime regarded the room dubiously. It was dark and cobwebby, and it was doubtful if it had been swept for years. Moreover, she strongly suspected that the costumes were not used for honest purposes. In fact, she was almost certain of it, for Aizen had all but told her as much.

He then led the way out to the landing of a rickety tangle of stairs and pointed upwards. "Next floor up is the boys' dormitory, and the top floor is the girls," he said. "You'll join my kynchin morts there from now on, Orihime, and find it much more companionable than that little closet, I feel sure."

Orihime was regarding the walls dubiously. They must have had at least one or two hundred years of hard wear, with no plaster or paint for the last fifty, and they tended to sag and bulge here and there in a manner she didn't at all like. So did the floors, for that matter, while the stairs were worn deep with many feet. She tore her apprehensive stare from this to answer Aizen with suspicion.

"Well, I don't know what kynchin morts may be, but I won't be one, whatever you say."

"Certainly not," he agreed, leading the way down the twisting stairs. "You're my gentry mort."

It didn't sound much better. Orihime frowned, but then her attention was diverted, for they had reached the bottom of the stairs and were in a narrow corridor that was like a maze. It opened on one side, twisted to another, and erupted suddenly into an entry hall with another corridor to the right, and a door to the left.

"Cock's bones!" she said, using Ichigo's favorite expression. "It's like a puzzle box, or the maze Sora told me of at Hampton Court."

"Exactly!" Aizen seemed pleased. "To confuse any unwanted visitors. Come, I'll show you." He led the way down the other corridor, which turned once and ran along the front wall to the outer door. Aizen stood Orihime with her back to the door. "Now, you've just come in from the light, and have never seen it before," he said. "Which way would you go?"

The corridor they had just come down was a small opening over on her right, almost behind the door when it was open. Directly ahead was a much wider one. Orihime jerked her head at it without hesitation.

"Of course!" Aizen laughed. "Come and see where it leads."

Where it led was confusing. Sharply to the left, sharply to the right, and then apparently into a blank wall with some old planks leaning against it, and a bottomless bucket, some rags, and other bits of assorted junk. But it wasn't a dead end, after all. At the last possible moment, the corridor did an abrupt turn-about on itself, went back the way it came, made several zigzags, and emerged at the bottom of the stairs they had come down a few minutes earlier.

Orihime blinked. "Well, if the whole idea is to confuse your guests, I should think it would do it splendidly," she observed. "But I must say it doesn't seem very hospitable."

"It isn't," he said, greatly pleased at her reaction, and went back into the entry hall and from there through a door into the main downstairs room. "Our Great Hall," he said, waving his hand gracefully. "Common room, schoolroom, kitchen and dining room, solar, and parlor."

The floor was deep with rushes, which had apparently been brought in now and then over the past century or so, but had never been removed. Orihime had frequently thought Sora quite unnecessarily fussy about changing the rushes every fortnight; now she suddenly saw his point very strongly indeed. She tried not to imagine what might be at the bottom later; it was bad enough to smell it.

She wrinkled her nose. "This place surely isn't fit even for beggars; you're not treating your Arrancar very well by making them stay in a place like this," she observed.

Aizen looked at her, surprised. "You haven't the least notion what you're talking about, Orihime. This place is sheer luxury for my Arrancar. Wait until you've seen the kennels and gutters and alleys most of them came from."

Orihime subsided and looked around again. There wasn't much to see. A narrow window on the front wall let in what light there was. Along the middle of the long side wall was a fireplace, with a meager fire tended by a thin, black-haired man with odd scars running down his cheeks below his brilliant green eyes. He glanced at her expressionlessly and continued to stir a large simmering pot, filled with pease porridge and perhaps some half-rotten scraps of meat by the smell of it.

"That's Ulquiorra," said Aizen. "He rarely says a word, but he keeps an eye on the kynchin morts, tends the sores, cooks, helps train the little ones, prevents Rukia and Renji from killing each other, and puts a hand to the housekeeping."

Orihime stared around the squalid room. "He doesn't put _much_ of a hand to the housekeeping," she observed.

This earned her a brief unfriendly glance from Ulquiorra and a waggled finger from Aizen. "Now, now, Orihime, keep your chaffer closed or you'll end up in a prime tweak one of these days."

She stared. "Is that thieves' cant you're talking? Ichigo told me rogues in London had a special language of their own, but I can't speak it; how could I? How am I supposed to know what you're saying?"

"You'll pick it up," he told her, smiling. "Even though you're only a gentry mort. In return, you can teach some of my kynchin morts fine gentry manners, mayhap."

"No," cried Orihime in outrage.

The infuriating Aizen actually seemed amused by this. "I do like your spirit," he remarked. "If you shape up well, I might even make you my doxy one of these days."

Orihime didn't quite know what a doxy might be, but she didn't at all like the sound of it. She subsided into gloomy silence on her narrow bench, while the squalor and chill of the house and the despair of having to stay there sank into her bones. She hardly noticed at first when the outer door began groaning open and banging shut, and people began arriving in the common room from the maze of corridors. Then her eyes began to focus again and she stared.

They were a motley lot, mostly young. Children of four or five stopped limping as they came into the room, and began fishing coppers from assorted hiding places among their rags. These they put on the table, either sheepishly or proudly according to the amount. Several whipped foul rags off ugly open sores and examined the latter with a professional air.

"Need more lye on this," announced a small urchin in disgust, showing it to Aizen. "Nubbody wasn't upset when I showed it. Renji's is lots better, innit?"

A few older ones were neatly and respectably dressed, and these produced—or failed to produce—neatly cut purses. A flock of grown girls blew in giggling and proceeded to show Aizen how Loly had batted her eyes at a swell cove until he was fair befuddled whilst Menoly picked his pocket neat as cods.

"Aizen-sama!" clamored a tiny girl with a tangle of dark curls. "Listen! Look!" Her voice had simply incredible volume, and she had the personality of a major battle. "I got me 'and in the pocket wivout ringing the bells three times last night, so that makes me a foister, dunnit?"

Aizen laughed. "One thing to get your hand in, Rukia my poppet, and quite another to get anything out. Let's see you try it now."

The girl went over to the darkest corner, where Orihime noticed for the first time there were a number of purses and pockets hanging from hooks. They seemed to have dozens of tiny hawkbells sewed all over them. Moving with most impressive care, Rukia got her hand quite into one of them and was fishing for something when one of the bells tinkled. She swore luridly, and the others laughed.

"Yaaah!" jeered Renji, a scrawny urchin whose long, dirty crimson hair was pulled back into a scraggly ponytail. "Can't even pick a pocket! Wants to be a foister afore she's 'ardly a nipper, silly dell!"

Rukia at once made a strenuous effort to kill him. They rolled over the floor, biting and kicking, clawing and screaming. Orihime, recoiling from the ferocity of it, gathered that this must be a regular event, for the others paid little attention. But at length the battle rolled against a long-legged young man called Starrk, who picked them up, each by the scruff of a dirty neck, shook them, bumped their heads together until they yowled, and set them down again. Renji wandered over to sniff at the simmering pot, forgetting all about the fight, and Rukia instantly prepared to attack Starrk.

"Come here, Rukia," ordered Aizen, apparently feeling that enough was enough. "Try that pocket again. The rest of you, too."

"Me next! No, me!" A clamor of children, shoving and pinching, lined up for the nightly practice. It was clear that they loved the game. Eyes sparkled and laughter bubbled. Aizen directed, rewarding each with a jest, a cuff, a word of praise or encouragement.

Orihime, watching with astonished eyes, sat forgotten in her dim corner until a warm stench snuggled itself next to her with shy boldness. Nel was suffering a fierce attack of hero-worship. That Orihime was a great lady she had seen instantly and with awe. She had never been addressed by such a being before, much less had the honor of feeding and tending one, and soothing its headache. Now she sidled slightly closer and peered sideways at Orihime, perfectly certain of a snub, but minding no more than a devoted puppy would.

Orihime sat still, trying not to wrinkle her nose. Although it was an accepted fact of nature that people tended to stink, she had never quite smelled someone as pungent as this.

She couldn't help herself. "Don't you ever wash?" she finally asked, looking at the grayish skin of Nel's thin face.

Nel looked shocked. "Make yer sick," she explained kindly. "Not natural, warshing. Like takin' off nits 'n lice. Nits 'n lice 'n dirt's 'ealthy," she added. "You'll be 'ealthier when yer gets more."

Then Rukia's voice erupted over the hubbub. "I done it, Aizen-sama! D'yer see? I done it! I'm a proper prig, I am! I'm a foister! Can I try it tomorrow on a flash cove, Aizen-sama?"

"What is she talking about?" Orihime asked of Nel. "What's a nipper and a foister and a flash cove and a kynchin mort? And a gentry mort?" she added, remembering a certain remark of Aizen's.

Nel looked astounded at such ignorance. "A gentry mort's a lady, like yer," she explained. "'N a nipper's a cutpurse, 'n a foister's a pickpocket; that's 'arder, yer see. 'N when someone gets better nor a prig—that's a robber—they moves to Las Noches and lives wiv the proper rogues like coney-catchers 'n jackmen. Us 'ere in Hueco Mundo is only kynchin morts 'n kynchin coves 'n nippers 'n foisters 'n fraters 'n walking morts 'n dommerers 'n—"

Orihime, almost completely unenlightened except for the vague impression that Las Noches was for greater knaves than Hueco Mundo, said so. Nel verified this, after much patient prodding. A prigger, it seemed, was a thief, a dommerer a spurious deaf-mute, a frater someone begging with a forged license. Nel herself, she confessed sadly, was only a frater, being too stupid for anything else. But she had a beautiful forged license. She took the tin token from her scrawny bosom for Orihime to see.

"'N all these little 'n's is kynchin morts and kynchin coves," she added, from which the shocked Orihime gathered that they were apprentices to a life of higher crime, all being ambitious to move upward on that ladder.

"Does Aizen just ride around the highways of England looking for stray children?" she asked, as a sudden horrifying suspicion struck.

But Nel shook her head. "Only yer, 'n that was 'cos 'e needed a flash dell—a gentry mort, I mean—for a plan 'e's got. I 'eard 'im telling Ulquiorra. The rest of us is mostly orphans wot would've died in the street if 'e 'adn't took us in." Her face shone with gratitude. "'E gives us a place ter live, 'n food 'n clothes 'n blankets, 'n 'e teaches us trades, 'n only lets us do the work us is fit ter do, so us 'ardly ever ends up on the nubbing cheat."

"What's the nubbing cheat?" asked the fascinated Orihime, hardly able to believe her ears.

"Gallows," said Nel, surprised.

Orihime shivered suddenly, not entirely from cold. Nel thought the matter over. "Glad I 'aven't the wits ter prig," she decided comfortably. "Beggin's safer, even if I don't never get to Las Noches." It was clear that begging was the lowest rung of the social ladder here, merely tolerated by self-respecting rogues. Orihime didn't care to think too deeply about the upper rungs. She shivered again.

XxXxXxX

Aizen left Orihime to settle herself into Hueco Mundo under Ulquiorra's dour eyes, and with the constant guardianship of Nel and a hulking fellow named Yammy who sat stolidly by the front door with one thought firmly fixed in his small and sluggish brain. Orihime wasn't to go out. No matter what. It might have been awkward indeed had the house caught fire.

Nel was prepared to be humble, sociable, and informative. "Aizen-sama picked us ter stay wiv yer acause we'm not much use outside any'ow," she explained cheerfully. "Too big 'n too ugly ter move people's 'earts begging, 'n too stupid ter do anyfing else."

Orihime could readily see this as she looked at Yammy. "'N Ulquiorra says us is ter throw out the slops." Nel announced, looking slightly askance at Orihime to see how she took this. Orihime wrinkled her nose again, but stood up gamely as Nel picked up the reeking buckets. She helped her carry them upstairs one by one to the window. Nel bawled, "Slops!" at the top of her voice, and emptied them briskly into the streets. On the last one, a yell from below suggested that someone hadn't jumped in time. Nel giggled.

Orihime frowned thoughtfully. Surely, now she came to think of it, this was an unsatisfactory method of doing things. Couldn't some clever person like Sora invent a better one? Like—oh, like a hole in the ground under each house—or something.

She found herself staring at Nel curiously as the taller girl led the way downstairs. She wondered what it must have felt to live like Nel had all her life.

"What would you like to do, Nel, if you could do anything in the world?" she asked.

Nel, whose faculty of imagination had been totally undeveloped, gaped. She found the very idea bewildering.

"If you could be or do anything," Orihime repeated.

"But I can't," Nel explained. "I'm Nel. Can't be nubbody else, can't do nothin' else."

"Well, just pretend," Orihime urged. "Suppose a fairy came and gave you a wish. Would you want money? Would you like to be clever and go to Las Noches? Or be a fine lady in lovely clothes? Or what?"

Nel struggled. These last two suggestions were quite beyond her scope, but there was something… "I'd like ter go outside the town walls every day," she confessed. "I likes the grass 'n green fings, 'n flowers. If I was clever, see, Aizen-sama'd use me for a maid in a big 'ouse outside Lunnen ter spy for 'im, 'n nose out Papist plots 'n all, 'n then I c'd see green meadows 'n fine people all the time." She sighed, quite carried away by this unusual flight of fancy.

Before Orihime could respond to this, there was the inevitable noisy screech of the front door opening, a thud of someone crashing against Yammy, and a duet of swearing in treble and baritone. This was followed by a loud roar, and the roar was followed by Rukia.

"I want 'im!" she bawled, erupting into the common room and charging toward the fireplace. "'E's mine. I saved 'im; this time I saved 'im, Ulquiorra, and nubbody can't kill 'im, 'n you can make 'im all well again, 'n 's all right, innit?"

She skidded to a halt in front of Ulquiorra and shoved at him a small matted bundle she had been clutching to her chest. Her dirty little face and brilliant violet eyes were ablaze. She was a perfectly terrifying child, clearly capable of any kind of wickedness and violence.

Ulquiorra seemed unterrified. He glanced at the furry bundle, poked it, shrugged noncommittally. "Dead," he said in his neutral voice. "It's a good thing, too. You know you can't 'ave no cat to live 'here; you been told that. Kynchin coves 'd kill it. Throw it away 'n go back to work, or I'll tell Aizen-sama."

Rukia hugged the disgusting corpse to her chest, stamped, and roared like a dozen lions from the Tower of London. Enormous tears poured down her face in an amazing flow. Between roars she bawled at the top of her lungs that it mustn't be dead, she'd saved it from the 'prentices, she wanted to keep it to sleep with her, and if she couldn't have this, she'd find another.

In the middle of the uproar, Aizen appeared as if by magic. Rukia turned on him defiantly and went through the whole scene over again, while Orihime stared in fascination. Eventually Aizen took the dead cat and gave it to Ulquiorra for disposal. Rukia yelled and kicked at him with a small bare foot. Aizen turned her over and smacked her bare thigh where it appeared through the rags. Then he shook her, picked her up in surprisingly gentle arms, and stared her into silence. After which he set her down, patted her drenched cheek, and told her to run along and do some good begging while she still looked so pitiable and tragic.

Rukia obeyed, meekly enough. But her face had a certain look of stubborn determination that didn't escape Orihime's eyes, even though it was turned away from Aizen.

Aizen turned, saw Orihime, and nodded cheerfully. He was dressed as a rich merchant today, in plum and blue; and his conscience (if he had one, which was beginning to seem extremely doubtful) was perfectly at ease regarding his prisoner. One might think he had done her a favor in letting her stay here.

"Silly poppet," he observed in the direction of the squeal and thud of the front door. "She has an idiot notion that she can find a stray cat and keep it as a pet, the way the gentry do. Still, she's a clever child. I'll have you teach her fine speech and manners one of these days; it might come in handy."

"No," said Orihime automatically but without much conviction.

Aizen rightly ignored this as a rather pathetic bit of bravado, and went on as if she hadn't opened her mouth. "I'll take you out tomorrow and show you a bit of London," he said. "Nel, you can outfit her, and if you fumble it, I'll skin you."

Nel didn't look particularly scared. "I'll get 'er in prime twig," she promised, all enthusiasm. "Cap downright if I don't!"

"You'd better," he said carelessly. "Useless baggage that you are, I'll turn you out one of these days if you don't start showing a profit."

It seemed an odd kind of threat to Orihime, who could think of nothing she'd like better. But Nel turned quite white and went on her knees, babbling that she'd do better, truly she would, and please please let her stay.

"Well, you can turn _me_ out any time," offered Orihime.

Aizen laughed. "You'd change your mind in about ten minutes, Orihime. Besides, I wouldn't turn you out for the world. Think of the Queen! Now run up with Nel to the wardrobe room and look over what you're to wear tomorrow. I'll drop back tonight to see you."

"But why?" asked Orihime. "What's all this to do with the plot? Why can't we just go and tell Sir Yamamoto, which I don't see why you didn't do in the first place. After all, he is the Secretary of State and everyone knows he tries to discover plots against the Queen."

"My dear Orihime, it's not nearly that simple, I assure you. Now do stop adding to my difficulties, and go do as I say."

Orihime obeyed resentfully, keeping her thoughts to herself. A quarter of an hour later, in the middle of a pile of wildly assorted garments, she suddenly frowned, lifted her head, sat back on her heels, and began thinking deeply.

"Has Aizen gone?" she asked. Nel was sure he had. Why would he hang about? "Well, I didn't hear him go," Orihime reflected aloud. "And that door makes the most awful racket, so I should have heard it. And I didn't hear it when he came in, either."

"Rukia was 'avin' 'er fit," Nel pointed out with simple logic. "Yer couldn't 'ave 'eard a 'ole mob. 'Ere, try this."

Orihime put on a filthy rag of a skirt, too distracted to notice what it was like. "Well, yes; but I do think I should have heard him go out, because I was listening, and it was quiet. And if it comes to that, I didn't hear him come in last night."

Nel sat back on her own heels and thought about it. "'Strewf," she discovered suddenly. "'E don't never make no noise comin' or goin'. And I ain't 'ardly ever seen 'im come or go, 'e just appears. I fink 'e does it by magic." And she began turning over clothing again, perfectly satisfied by this explanation.

"Black magic, I'll warrant," muttered Orihime, who was beginning to feel increasingly uncharitable toward him, Queen or no Queen. She could easily visualize him appearing and disappearing in puffs of sulphurous smoke. She fell to brooding. What if he _were_ in league with the Devil? What if all that plausibility and charm were the snares of Satan? Panic gripped at her. She felt a sudden yearning to have Ichigo by her side again, to have him banish her fears with a single scowl. He would surely say it made no sense. But she was alone here, alone in London and in Hueco Mundo, without a friend or ally, and reliant only on her wits to survive. Could she truly be facing supernatural opposition?

The whole idea was so terrifying that she put it right out of her mind and forced her attention back to matters at hand.

"Ugh!" she said, looking at the skirt she was wearing, and began to take it off.

XxXxXxX

"Told you so," sighed Uryuu, hoping that his friend was now prepared to be reasonable. For three days they had been tracking down and interviewing various Inoue cousins in pursuit of Orihime, and the experience had not been rewarding. They had just visited the last cousin where Orihime might have remotely sought shelter. No one had seen her, and some of them were quite rude in their declarations of ignorance.

But Ichigo had been incredibly determined not to leave a single stone unturned in search of Orihime. He was unshakably convinced that she was somewhere in London, and every time Uryuu had attempted to dissuade him, Ichigo's scowl deepened and his look of ferocious determination became more intense. "She's here somewhere," he insisted. "What's more, I have a feeling she's very close by, and I'm just missing her."

"I don't think she came to London at all," insisted Uryuu, thinking Ichigo was really becoming altogether irrational on the subject of Orihime. "I told you so all along. Do listen to reason, Ichigo."

Ichigo consulted his intuition again and found it implacable. "Yes, she did," he said with decision. "And what's more, I'm going to find her."

Uryuu looked startled. "Find her? How on earth do you expect to do that? If she's just loose in London—" He shrugged eloquently.

Ichigo looked at him. "I'll just look until I do," he announced with staggering simplicity.

Uryuu stopped short in the middle of the Strand. "You can't mean it!" he begged, knowing perfectly well that Ichigo did mean it. "Oh, well." He looked martyred. "I suppose I shall have to help, although I've never even met the girl. So why do you want to find her so much, anyway?" He looked at Ichigo. "Is she that special?"

Ichigo turned away, scowling. "Never mind."

Uryuu sighed. "We'll be old men with beards if we have to search all of London. It's a big place, you know!" He thought to himself that Ichigo was being irrational about his feelings for Orihime as well as this insane search, but he decided it would be better to keep quiet about that part. He started walking down the street again. "When do we start? How about next Monday?"

"This minute," said Ichigo, just as Uryuu had known he would. "Come on."


	4. Chapter 4

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 4**

**A/N: **In this chapter, Aizen finally lets Orihime in on some details of his counterplot. And Orihime gets to see London! And we see more of what Ichigo is doing to look for her.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 12/10/11, reposted 10/26/14.)

XxXxXxX

"Yer looks jus' like a fine lady dressed up as a beggar," said Nel discontentedly and with surprising acumen.

This did not at all surprise Orihime, who felt just like a fine lady dressed up as a beggar. She looked with revulsion at the assortment of once-bright rags held together largely by encrusted dirt. From it, her pixie face, still relatively clean, emerged like a water lily from a pool of stagnant sludge.

"Somefing just ain't right," Nel decided, sounding pleased with herself for having figured the thing out alone. "We'll ask Aizen-sama." And she led the way down the dark twisty stairs.

It was a stormy night, wind and rain howling around corners and through the narrow mazelike streets of London and in at every chink of Hueco Mundo. A fierce rattling sound from down the street suggested that the Sign of the Pied Bull was earnestly trying to pull itself off its hinges and attack the Happy Cockerel just beyond. Orihime shivered and wondered what it was like here in winter, and hoped most passionately that she would never find out.

In the common room below, everyone had got home from work wet and cold, and were gratefully but quarrelsomely drying out around the stingy fire in the huge fireplace. It was, explained Nel, never built up for more than cooking in the summer. Think of all the wasted fuel! Ulquiorra was stirring the eternal pease porridge in the pot. There was a pile of coarse black maslin bread and old cheese on the trestle table.

Orihime seated herself on the hard bench, amidst silence and a few snickers as the Arrancar stared at the outsider within their midst. The dark-haired girl named Loly made some snide comments to her group, then placed fists on hips, stuck her chin in the air, and minced across the floor in an unmistakable and highly unflattering caricature of Orihime that was thought tremendously funny by Loly's coterie of followers. A bosomy girl with dirty red hair named Rangiku said, "Aw, leave 'er alone," and the other girls fell to giggling amongst themselves.

Then Rukia erupted directly in front of Orihime.

"Talk!" she commanded deafeningly. "Yer talks funny, like a lady, 'n Aizen-sama says I'm ter learn 'ow."

Orihime bent a dubious eye upon the little girl. "Well, I don't think it would be the least use your trying," she said hesitantly. "I mean, you can't just go around changing your accent like that."

This was met by a derisive hoot and a suggestion that she listen to Aizen switch accents some time. And as if conjured up by the mention of his name, Aizen was there again, sauntering through from that maze of corridors leading to the front door. Had its squeak and thud been drowned out by the noise? Or—? Orihime sniffed the air for a hint of sulphur fumes, but the other stenches made it impossible to tell.

He laughed when he saw her in rags. "Can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse quite so easily, can we?"

"I didn't see no silk purses, not in the wardrobe boxes," said Nel apologetically. "I'm sorry, Aizen-sama; wot did I do wrong?"

Aizen boxed her ear good-naturedly. "Witling," he said. "You should have known she'd never pass as a beggar, even if I wanted another. Now go back up and dress her as a shopkeeper's daughter, little noddle-skull, before I slit your sneezer."

Nel scuttled upstairs, pulling Orihime with her.

When they appeared again, Aizen looked mildly approving. "Not bad," he conceded. "Well enough. I'll take you on a tour of London in that, Orihime; perhaps tomorrow. I think we'll cover your hair, though. It's too well tended for anyone but a gentry mort—but perfect for your role in our counterplot." Orihime pricked up her ears at this hint, and waited hopefully for another, but he was apparently lost in admiration of the luxuriant copper curls hanging down her back. Hair was a maiden's pride and respectability, flowing loose until after her marriage. Orihime's own was her particular joy, for it really was of a lovely color and shine and softness, besides being fashionable and like Queen Elizabeth. She endured his inspection with a frank complacency that caused Loly's eyes to narrow.

"Wigmaker'd pay a mort for that 'air," she suggested. "Red, too. All the style."

Orihime backed away a step, clutching it protectively. The kynchin morts giggled and the kynchin coves grinned. Aizen chuckled amiably.

"Wouldn't like to lose it, eh, Orihime?"

"Of course not," said Orihime with dignity. "No respectable girl would have short hair, would she? Besides, mine's my only beauty, so I particularly want to keep it." And then she bit her unruly tongue. Why did she always blurt out whatever she was thinking? The morts were giggling again, delighted at such an admission.

Aizen studied her with a judicious air. "Nay, now," he decided. "Who told you that? Ichigo? You've truly got lovely features. And you've also nice white teeth, which is a rare enough thing, and a saucy nose if not a dignified one, and large grey eyes that any mort would envy." (The morts tossed their heads pettishly and denied this.) "Anyway," Aizen went on with a chuckle, "you're wrong about no nice girl having short hair, isn't she, Loly?"

Loly, grinning, unwrapped a bundle she had placed on the table when she came in. "There's plenty in London do," she pointed out, displaying a mass of long, fair, silky hair. "You shoulda 'eard 'er yell! Bit me fumb, 'er did." She nursed the thumb.

Aizen laughed again at Orihime's expression. "Lures little girls into dark alleys, Loly does, and cuts off their hair. Wigmakers pay well. Be good, Orihime, or I'll let her have yours."

But this time Orihime failed to show alarm. She had just thought of something.

"Well, you won't," she told him. "You need my hair on me for whatever it is I'm to do for the Queen. You just said so."

She tilted her head at Aizen, who looked faintly startled and then amused. "Astute girl," he said, and tousled the hair.

XxXxXxX

The tall shopkeeper emerged from the narrow house in Slops Alley, hurried past the Pied Bull and Happy Cockerel, and headed straight for a more respectable street. He led his young daughter by the hand, glancing down at her now and then with a look of paternal affection. Clearly a most devoted father! Orihime dimpled back at him, quite forgetting her annoyance about housing conditions. At last she was seeing London!

It was a dozen worlds. It was a jewel, a cesspool, a mob, and a fair. Orihime felt crowded into her own eyes and ears, staring avidly, loving even the bits she loathed. And to think that Sora deliberately chose to live in the empty countryside instead!

They paced along narrow, crooked streets, bright with swinging shop signs, houses staggering any which way. Upper stories pushed farther and farther outwards until they nearly met overhead and only a strip of sky came shining through—just above the strip of reeking gutter along the center of every cobbled street. There were strolling players, morris dancers, a performing bear led by a little boy, wandering fiddlers and a ballad-monger. There were lords on horseback, merchants in furred gowns, and scabby, wheedling beggars and fortune-tellers—several of whom Orihime recognized. Here and there, Aizen's Arrancar were begging or wandering among crowds with expressions of shattering innocence—especially in the wide market street Chepeside, where fat purses and the tempting stalls all down the center offered irresistible opportunities for dishonesty.

Orihime took it all in tirelessly. Then she turned a suddenly inquiring face up to Aizen's. "I'm confused," she said. "Why don't you ever explain anything?"

"What do you need explained?" he asked benevolently.

"Well, everything, but especially why I have to stay in Hueco Mundo, and about the plot. Who's plotting it, and what are they plotting, and when, and how am I supposed to help, and why me instead of anyone else; and if you never have time to explain any of these things to me, how is it that you have time to take a whole day and show me London?"

He smiled down at her. "Don't you think it's important that you see London?"

Orihime knitted her eyebrows. "Well, of course I think it's important, because that's why I came to London in the first place, isn't it? But I shouldn't think you'd think it very important."

"You wrong me, Orihime," protested Aizen, looking injured. "Don't you think I care about your happiness?"

Orihime surprised herself. "Well, no," she discovered. "Not really. Because if you did, you wouldn't make me stay in Hueco Mundo, for one thing. You use people, and you only care about me being useful to you, and you're just showing me London so I'll forget to mind about all the other things." She cocked her head to peer at his face with interest. It was a most astonishing conclusion she had just reached, and she wanted to see if he was going to be very angry.

"Orihime!" he exclaimed, his deep brown eyes soft with reproach. "Do you truly think so ill of me?"

"Well—" Orihime at once began to melt. "You act that way," she pointed out, but with diminishing conviction.

"You mustn't judge people by appearances," Aizen told her severely.

Orihime rallied. "Well, I know I shouldn't, because if I hadn't, I should never have thought you were a gentleman, would I? And then you never would have stolen me. Because you appeared to be a perfect gentleman, and it was only afterwards I found out you're a knave and a rogue and the Upright Man." She jerked her chin at him in triumph, and tried to look quelling, but it was impossible with him grinning at her so mischievously.

"Ah, perhaps, Orihime. But then, if you hadn't trusted me, you'd never have been able to help me save the Queen, would you?"

Orihime suddenly perceived that she had been sidetracked off that very subject some moments earlier. "Yes, well that reminds me, you still haven't answered any of my questions, have you? So far, I haven't done a single thing to help, and I don't even know anything about it, and don't you think we ought to hurry? What if they go ahead and assassinate her or invade England or whatever it is they're planning, while we're just sitting around in Hueco Mundo or even seeing London?"

"All in good time," he said soothingly. "Don't fret, my dear. Look, here's St. Paul's ahead. You'll want to see it, and I've some business there."

"In a cathedral?" Orihime asked, sidetracked again. Aizen didn't strike her as being at all a religious man. "What kind of business could you have there?"

"Any kind you can think of." He tousled her hair again. "Come see."

Orihime stared at the sharp spire which dominated the sky between rooftops, and felt a strong sense of shock when they got inside. St. Paul's was a veritable marketplace. The nave was lined on both sides with stalls, bookshops, and lawyers and scribes waiting to be hired. All were doing a thriving business. Here, said Aizen, lovers and plotters met (Orihime pricked up her ears at that), business deals were arranged, and fashionable men and women paraded up and down showing off their newest finery. And here Aizen remained for a full hour, apparently doing a good bit of business.

But when he had finished, and they were starting home, Orihime returned to a certain subject with a tenacity that surprised Aizen.

"It's all very well to say all in good time, but I haven't got much time. Sooner or later someone's going to notice that I'm missing, and get their tails in knots." She sighed a little, thinking of Ichigo. Adventure lacked savor without him; she must arrange in the future not to exclude him so thoroughly.

"I'm not delaying matters just to annoy you, Orihime," said Aizen. "The fact is, we can't do anything until a certain family returns to London. When that day comes… Believe me, my dear, I'm as eager as you."

"Oh," said Orihime, and had to be satisfied.

XxXxXxX

"I thought I saw her," said Chad. "I mean, it might have been her. It was at St. Paul's. But then I thought not, for the maid was wearing common clothing, and with a common merchant, and perfectly at ease with him, too. But when I wanted a closer look, I lost her in the crowd, and couldn't see her again, though I stayed and searched—until I had my purse cut," he finished with resignation.

Ichigo looked fiercely determined. "Good, Chad. I think we'll try to keep you or me watching at St. Paul's entrance every day, just in case. It's a good center, anyway. Uryuu—"

"I'm no use," said Uryuu. "Don't know the girl; never saw her before in my life."

"Aye," Ichigo conceded regretfully. "Oh well." He glanced once again at Uryuu, thinking to himself, without really understanding why, that perhaps it was best that he had never met Orihime.

XxXxXxX

After that lovely day of sightseeing, Aizen apparently forgot she existed, and left her to cool her heels for the next two days in Hueco Mundo, with Yammy guarding the door and Ulquiorra giving her his expressionless glare. Nan hovered as though she were a prison warder under orders to prevent her from leaving in case she changed her mind about helping with the counterplot.

Orihime considered this. She was developing a nasty suspicious mind these days, she thought, and at least half the time she wasn't at all sure she trusted Aizen, after all; and now and then she was sure of it. Moreover, she reflected, he didn't trust her either. He really was a cullionly caitiff!

When he appeared on the second night, silently as usual, she greeted him with a scowl.

"Now, now," he smiled. "It's a bear instead of a princess tonight, I see. Shall I set my dogs on you?"

Rukia, who never needed much excuse to start a brawl, at once began to bark and growl, and rushed at Orihime like a miniature bulldog. She erupted into an awesome combination of mad dog and shrieking fiend from hell; and Orihime began to think that she was no match at all for this small devil who had spent the whole of her short life fighting for existence. The whole thing was rapidly degenerating into a fight to the death, and one which Orihime was quite certain she would lose, when Aizen plucked Rukia off.

"You mustn't kill each other yet," he told them good-naturedly. "I need you both. Time for pocket practice, goslings. You first, Rukia, and if you ring a bell I'll box your ears. Want to try it, Orihime?"

Orihime looked at him in shock. "Me? Try thieving? But that's wrong. You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said to Aizen, "training children to steal, even if you are loyal to the Queen." She addressed herself to the Arrancar. "Don't you know it's dishonest? You really are very bad, you know."

They stared at her, puzzled. Grimmjow, a scrawny child with hair an unlikely shade of blue, bristled.

"We ain't!" he declared, insulted. "Aizen-sama don't train no bad prigs. 'E don't let us prig 'nless us is good at it."

"Well, I don't mean bad that way," said Orihime, trying to explain. "I mean, it's wicked to steal. You'll go to hell."

No one seemed deeply moved by this prediction.

"Same thing any road," Starrk explained with a philosophical shrug of his wide but bony shoulders. "Go sooner if we cocks up our toes wiv 'unger."

"Tell you wot 'tis," Rukia growled, coming forward to glare at Orihime while Aizen stood back watching with an expression of amused interest. "You gentry 'ave things all your own way, don't you? Your pockets and bellies is full; you got everything 'n we got nothing, so you makes rules saying we can't 'ave nothing or 'tis wicked 'n you'll 'ang us."

"No, it's not like that," cried Orihime in frustration. "It's just that you mustn't steal it."

"'Ow else d'you think we could get it?" Rukia demanded.

"Well—earn it, of course," said Orihime, but a trifle doubtfully. Rukia favored her with a contemptuous laugh and turned away. The pocket practice went on as if nothing had happened, leaving Orihime to ponder upon her hard bench.

She had been brought up to believe that gentry were different from others, and that there were implacable rules for behavior which should not be bent. Suddenly it occurred to her that Rukia might be right, after all, and it was a disturbing thought to her kind heart. She had been so caught up in her own misery and confusion that she had not been paying enough attention to the Arrancar around her and what they might be feeling. She lowered her head and said nothing as her compassion flared.

"Welladay," said Aizen presently. "Keep it up, then, goslings. Loly and Rukia, you'll be promoted one day soon, if you continue to please me. Give ye good night. Come along, Orihime." And he started for the door.

Orihime scuttled after him with more haste than dignity. She was not going to miss any chance to escape Hueco Mundo! Besides, it occurred to her that Aizen had once more appeared without a sound from the clamorous front door, and if he was about to disappear in a cloud of sulphur, Orihime very much wanted to see it.

Alas, he did no such thing, but walked out in the most ordinary way. The door groaned and banged behind them, and Orihime hurried in the golden evening sunshine to catch up.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "Is it the counterplot now?"

"Wait and see," he returned infuriatingly, and proceeded to lead her on a most torturous course, turning nearly every corner they came to, twisting through narrow stinking alleys and wider streets that seemed respectable only by comparison. Orihime, who happened to have a natural sense of direction, began to frown thoughtfully. She opened her mouth to tell Aizen that they were going in circles, and this was the second time they had passed this corner where one could just glimpse the Happy Cockerel and the entrance to Slops Alley down the side street, and if he was lost, he had best ask directions. Then it occurred to her that Aizen knew every foot of London as well as she knew Karakura. So—he must be going in circles on purpose.

Orihime realized that she was developing an extremely suspicious mind. The idea came to her that if he were doing it on purpose, it might well be with a mind to deceiving her.

She opened her mouth to inform him of this, and then closed it for the second time. If he were doing it to deceive her, he clearly knew it already, and it might be more clever of her not to tell him that she knew.

She peered through the fading sunset—for it was now after eight of the clock—at the high wall ahead. "Oh! Isn't this Las Noches, where I came the first night? Why couldn't you have told me we were coming here to begin with?"

Aizen smiled and led the way in. Orihime had never found it possible to stay angry in the face of affability. And Aizen was decidedly affable that evening. He turned her over to Momo, who whisked her off for a good hot bath that very nearly caused Orihime to forgive everything on the spot.

"I only come up from Hueco Mundo at Easter," Momo confided over soap and scrub brush. "Aizen-sama's training me ter be a lady's maid, and 'e says I must listen to 'ow you talk and copy it." Her soft brown eyes were wide with admiration and devotion. "Ain't 'e wonderful?" she sighed.

"Well—he's very surprising," conceded Orihime cautiously, not ready to go as far as Momo in the matter. "Now let's wash my hair."

"Your 'air?" Momo looked shocked. She was slowly getting used to the ways of gentry and the occasional use of soap, but a bath every six months or so was, she felt, quite radical enough. Surely washing hair was unnatural?

"Dunno if Aizen-sama'd like it," she demurred.

"It's got nothing to do with him," said Orihime in surprise. "Except it's his fault I've got bugs in it." And she dunked her head into the hot water to preclude all argument.

Momo, darkly predicting almost instant death of a rheum or worse, gave in, helped soap it, and spent a full hour brushing it dry. After which she looked at the silken waves gleaming exactly the color of copper in the soft candlelight, and conceded it looked wondrous pretty, at that.

Orihime only smiled and looked at the big four-poster bed with embroidered curtains hung around it. "I notice Aizen didn't say anything this time about it not being proper for me to sleep here," she observed. "He just arranges his notions of right and wrong to suit his convenience."

"Aye, to be sure," agreed Momo, surprised. "Doesn't everybody?"

XxXxXxX

Orihime saw Aizen at dinner the next morning, which they had at the fashionable hour of ten. A proper dinner, and not just the dry-bread-and-pease-porridge breakfast that the Arrancar had before setting out on a day's begging, prigging, and general roguery.

She commented to Aizen that this was the kind of dinner that everyone should have in the morning. "It's good for your energy," she said.

"So I see," commented Aizen dryly, watching her make inroads on the beef and mutton, stewed carp, and a side dish of boiled radish and artichoke. She had seconds of everything, sighed happily, indignantly refused even the smallest sip of wine, and leaned back in her chair.

"So are you going to tell me about the plot and what I'm supposed to do to foil it and save Queen Bess?" she asked.

"Yes, my dear; please listen carefully." He passed a bowl of sweet pears and oranges, and took one himself, addressing himself to the flattered Orihime as if she were a grown lady.

"I have managed to become very friendly with some of our leading Quincy families over these last months, and I'm sure there's something big afoot, involving the Wandenreich Ambassador Haschwalth."

"And Mary of Scotland?" asked Orihime.

"Mary, of course," Aizen agreed. "But I can't learn any more. These Quincies take me into their homes, but not into their confidence. They have nasty distrustful minds, these plotters." He shook his head sadly. "Seem to think Yamamoto has government spies under every bed."

"Well, so he should," declared Orihime. It seemed an altogether reasonable precaution to protect the Queen.

"Mmm," said Aizen obliquely. "Very like. But the point is, my dear friend Lady Candice and her family seem only to trust me so far and no further."

"'Tis monstrous churlish of them!" cried Orihime, carried away.

"Aye," Aizen agreed solemnly. "Most brutish. They act as if I might turn out to be a clever and plausible knave out to spy on them, or something."

Orihime stared, giggled suddenly, then frowned. "Well, but this time you're not really being a knave, because it's for the Queen," she pointed out.

"To be sure," Aizen agreed at once. "Now, in order to invoke more trust, I've allowed myself to be converted to the Quincy faith by one of that army of priests who have been swarming into England this past two or three years. Oh, no; not in truth," he added hastily at Orihime's alarmed expression. "Only in pretense. It helped, but not enough. And it occurred to me that if I only had a family to be converted as well—particularly if it just happened to include a daughter of an age to be friends with young Meninas, Lady Candice's daughter… And behold, you came to my hand." He smiled. "My motherless daughter Oriana, living until recently with your aunt in—well, Karakura will do; it's large enough, and you really do know it, and the fewer inventions for you to remember, the better. So I shall bring you to visit them, and also to be converted. They won't be able to resist that. In fact, they have just got back to London, and I've already informed them, and they're simply delighted with the prospect, quite prepared to take you under their wing and instruct you and let you spend time with Meninas."

He regarded Orihime quizzically. She stared back, doubtful. "Do you mean you're going to pretend to be my father? When you aren't even a gentleman?"

"Sir Sousuke Aizen of Seireitei Hall," he reminded her with a low bow. "I fooled you, didn't I, Orihime? And remember, if your pride thinks amiss of it, it's for the Queen," he added gently.

"Well, I know, but—" She considered it. "I can't pretend to be a Quincy; I don't know anything about it."

"My dear girl, you don't need to. You need know only that your dear father has been converted, and so you are prepared seriously to consider following his example. The more ignorant you are, the better, for your instruction can last that much longer and give us both that much more time in the company of Lady Candice's family. Now remember, don't volunteer too much information! Just keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and be as charming a young lady as you can. Become Meninas' very best friend; do you understand? And it may just be that it will be you who hears the important little words let drop. Do you think you can do it? I count on you, my dear."

"Oh." Orihime felt pleased at this honor. "Well, I believe I can. I just don't see why you waited so long—"

"My dear Orihime, I've told you. Lady Candice and her family have been out of town."

"Oh, yes; I'd forgot." Orihime suddenly thought of something else, and she narrowed her eyes at Aizen. "What's _your_ lay?" she demanded disconcertingly in the thieves' cant she had been picking up in Hueco Mundo.

His own eyebrows soared, and he chuckled appreciatively. Then he looked reproachful. "My dear young lady, don't you think I'd serve our Queen from pure love and loyalty?"

She shook her head. "Well, no, I don't."

He nodded, not at all put out. "Quite right, too. I'm a businessman, and I see you're beginning to develop a more practical train of mind, yourself. Welladay, since you've bubbled my lay—aye, Orihime, I intend to make a profit. Why not? I'm spending my time and trouble and brains; why shouldn't I be paid for it? And Yamamoto rewards well for true evidence on such matters, and we're all better off save the plotters. So you see, I can combine virtue and profit." He cocked his head at Orihime. "Do you think I should do it for love alone?"

"Well, yes, but I don't think you would." Orihime reached for another pear, feeling suddenly very old and wise in human nature. "In fact, if you hadn't told me about the reward, I daresay I should have thought you were up to something else devilish." She looked at him as he widened his brown eyes in soft reproach, but she went on. "For I don't believe you would lift a finger for anyone, not even Queen Elizabeth, unless you were paid for it." She reflected for a moment. "Still, so long as you confound the plot and save the Queen's life, it doesn't matter why you are doing it, so I'll help as much as I can. And you needn't even pay me a share of the reward," she added generously.

"I wasn't going to," said Aizen.

XxXxXxX

Ichigo stood at the door to St. Paul's, eyes rapidly scanning the hordes of people moving in and out of the nave. He sighed. After a few days of patient watching with no result, his intuition was becoming more insistent that he was looking in the wrong place at the moment. He scowled. If only his sense of Orihime's presence could be more directional, it would be much more convenient.

He looked once again at all the heads of hair, searching for that unique tint of orangish-red that was Orihime's, just the color of apricots. And as he did, he saw her once again in his mind's eye, heard her lovely soft voice, remembered her unique trusting nature and those odd flights of fancy that exasperated everybody, but that to his mind only made her more intriguing. Why did she keep getting into trouble like this, he wondered. He frowned. She needed him to keep her safe. He would have to figure out a way to keep her closer in the future, just in order to protect her, of course. Not for any other reason.

He was well aware of the comments others made about them marrying one day, and he scoffed internally. Someone like Orihime, as beautiful as she was, would likely have far better offers than him. He wanted what was best for her. Besides, she was too young to know her own mind, and when she grew up, she would probably one day fall in love with someone better than him. Still… he sighed once again, so unhappy about the thought of Orihime marrying anyone else that he turned his mind away from it. First things first. Right now, he had to find her and rescue her from whatever danger she was in. That was all that mattered at the moment. She was his nakama after all, no matter what. His intuition was clear that it was important that he remain in London and keep looking for her.

He stood up straighter and scanned the crowds of people with renewed attention.


	5. Chapter 5

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 5**

**A/N: To my reviewers: **I appreciate your supportive and constructive feedback more than I can say. THANK YOU!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 12/17/11, reposted 11/16/14.)

XxXxXxX

"This is my daughter Oriana, Lady Candice. Oriana, make your curtsey."

Orihime did so, and her hostess took one comprehensive look and was pleased. Not that one doubted the charming Sir Aizen, of course—but it was always better to know something of a friend's family. One could tell a lot that way. And there was no question at all of young Oriana's quality. It showed in every word and gesture. What a privilege to help save such a nice child from heresy and damnation, not to mention the unfortunate consequences for heretics when the Holy Yhwach should at last rule again over England!

Lady Candice warmed perceptibly toward Sir Aizen and his daughter at the thought. One learned to value true friends these days, when that wretched spymaster Yamamoto had his spies planted everywhere, and was urging the Queen to permit repressive measures against Quincies. And though she had not yet done so, she might at any moment. It made life exceedingly trying.

"Meninas will be down presently, dear," she told Orihime kindly, with another approving glance at the marks of breeding: the straight back and high head and glossy hair. "There's a dish of sugared violets on the cabinet over there."

Orihime took one and seated herself demurely on a stool, feeling her lacy petticoats rustle underneath her. Aizen had produced for her a pair of pale green hosen, of real silk, like the Queen herself wore, and a dress as well. She smoothed the soft folds, approving the green embroidered leaves on the creamy petticoat that showed in an inverted V in front, and also the pale green and blue of the shot-taffeta bodice and over-skirts.

She felt pleased that at last she was doing something to help save the Queen's life, and hopefully she could finish her task and go home before anyone had time to notice she was missing and worry about her.

"My husband and Cousin Loyd will be back anon," Lady Candice was saying. "You'll tarry, of course, for they—oh, here's Meninas. This is Oriana, my dear. You girls run into the garden and get acquainted."

Orihime followed the purple curls and frilly white dress with very mixed feelings; elation and apprehension and determination in equal parts. It was exciting, playing the role of someone else, a mythical Oriana; and doubly satisfying because she was doing it for the Queen. On the other hand, there might be difficulties…

The two girls turned to face each other in the middle of the garden, with searching eyes, not uncritical. It was at once clear to both of them that neither would really have chosen the other as a best friend. In fact, it soon began to appear to Orihime that they were so alien that they might well have belonged to two separate species, each unable to imagine how the other thought.

Meninas was sleek, with long wavy purple hair, multiple frills and bows all over her clothes, and a self-satisfied air. She chattered in a way that made Orihime wonder uncomfortably whether her own conversation could possibly be as irritating. Meninas went on and on about new clothes and styles, and the Court functions she would attend as soon as she was old enough, and the young men who paid her compliments, and one Uryuu in particular whose father was a Lord and who was in love with her, and what was the latest scandal in Court circles.

She found Orihime ignorant on all these subjects, and very dull. Orihime reflected with private satisfaction that she knew one young man, at least, who would simply loathe Meninas and decline to pay her a single compliment—and she wished suddenly that he were here to do it right now. Meninas fell silent at last, and the two girls looked at each other again, this time with mutual frustration.

"Mother says you're going to be converted to the True Faith like your father," said Meninas at last in the condescending voice of one who was born in it.

Orihime controlled her wayward tongue just in time. Appalled at how nearly she had given her feelings away, she swallowed hard and stammered a little. "I—well—yes."

"That's good." Meninas looked smug. "Then perhaps you won't be burnt for a heretic when Queen Mary—" She stopped, clapped a cluster of white fingers over her mouth, and turned pink. "I mean, perhaps you won't go to hell when you die."

Orihime's heart gave an odd sort of thump, and she stared at Meninas, almost incredulous. It was what she had hoped and intended, or course, but—but she could hardly believe her ears, all the same. How could anyone, even a silly little fool, really say such a thing, or even think it?

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Meninas demanded, uneasiness making her petulant. "What are you thinking?"

Taken by surprise, Orihime told her. "I was thinking how silly you are to say such things," she replied. "Especially to someone you've only just met and who isn't even converted yet. I mean, you don't know if I'm on your side at all, do you? And you don't know who I might tell."

"There's nothing to tell!" bleated Meninas, thoroughly alarmed. "I didn't say anything, and anyway, you wouldn't tell, would you? Father'd be furious! I'm not supposed to know a thing about it, of course, and anyhow, all I said was what everybody knows, that Queen Mary should be on the throne because Elizabeth is a bastard and excommunicated besides."

Orihime held her tongue with the greatest of difficulty, outrage mixed with the astonishing realization that Meninas really believed all this with single-minded conviction. Was it possible that Quincies didn't see themselves as traitors and assassins, but as loyal and honest people following a righteous course? And, moreover, would they think of her and Aizen as being the wicked traitors, spying on friends in their own homes with the purpose of betraying their confidence?

It was a terribly upsetting notion, and very muddling, besides. It made the counterplot seem not much nicer or better than the Quincy plot, and her own role distasteful. Did one, then have to do wrong to prevent another wrong? What would Ichigo think about it? Would he play the spy, even against traitors? Even to save the Queen?

Her conscience, appalled by this dilemma, retreated in confusion to somewhere in the back of her mind, and Orihime went doggedly on with her role. But somehow she couldn't think of anything to say. She just stared at Meninas, confused and unhappy. For the first time she realized that they were toying, she and Meninas and Aizen and all the plotters, with lives. Not just the Queen's life, but all the others, too: real people, who might well die as a consequence of what she and Meninas said to each other. Meninas, with that one incredibly stupid slip of the tongue, could well have signed the death warrant for her parents. And Orihime, with sudden revulsion, felt that she couldn't be a party to it.

The silence had gone on for what seemed a very long time, and Meninas was looking scared. "Don't tell," she pleaded.

"I won't," said Orihime impulsively, and felt a sense of relief. In any case, it didn't matter, for Meninas had said no more than Aizen knew already: that there was a plot afoot to put Mary Stuart on the throne of England. No need for Orihime to tell that. And if Meninas, later on, should let slip something else, more important… Well…

"What's the matter?" asked Meninas, instantly relieved of her own worry, and puzzled at Orihime's expression.

"I feel confused," Orihime announced with her incurable candor.

Fortunately, Meninas didn't inquire further. "That's because you're not converted yet," she asserted, becoming patronizing again, and instantly losing Orihime's sympathy. "Once you are, everything will be perfectly simple and clear, and you'll never be muddled any more."

"Truly?" Orihime challenged. "Do you swear that you never feel confused about what's right and wrong? And things never get all muddled up so that whatever you do is partly wrong?"

"Never," said Meninas positively, feeling that a lie was justified if it helped convert a lost soul.

The lost soul at once stopped thinking of Meninas as a fellow human, confused and groping even as she, and hardened her heart. Anyone as smug as Meninas probably deserved anything that happened.

Conversation languished and died, and both girls were relieved when Lady Candice sent for them to come to the drawing room.

For once Orihime had no trouble keeping her tongue from wagging. She didn't want to talk; she wanted to think. She sat quietly while the adults chatted lightly of things that didn't matter.

XxXxXxX

Orihime continued so silent that on the way home Aizen glanced at her curiously. "How now, Orihime, did the comfits stick your teeth together? You did well, and made a most excellent impression; does that please you?"

"Well, I'm not sure," confessed Orihime. "I mean, yes, of course—but I'm not sure I much like doing this, after all."

"What?" He stopped there in the street, tilted up her face, and stared at it in the torchlight while Gin obligingly paused and held the torch still. "What mean you, Orihime? Are you trying to tip the double on me at this stage? Because—"

"Well, I'm not," said Orihime staunchly. "All I said was that I don't like having to have counterplots this way even if it is in a good cause, so I'm glad Meninas didn't tell me anything you don't know already."

Aizen stared for a moment, looking surprised, baffled, and angry. "What is it I know already?" he asked at last, very quiet and somehow very dangerous. "What haven't you told me, Orihime?"

Orihime refused to quail. "Well, I'm not going to tell you, because it was just something you already know, so I promised Meninas not to tell anyone. I won't promise that any more, of course, in case she tells me something you don't know, but I did promise this time."

He stared a moment longer, wavering between fury and amusement. Then he broke into laughter that made a passer-by glance nervously over one shoulder and scuttle around a corner. "My dear scrupulous Orihime, do you really consider yourself bound by a promise made to traitors?"

"Yes, I do," she asserted, scowling.

"But why?" He was deeply curious. "They lie through their teeth to you when it suits their purposes. Just like me," he finished with a laugh.

Orihime found herself suddenly angry. "That's your affair," she snapped. "And theirs. I dare say you have your own rules, whatever they are. And I have mine. And 'tis not your integrity gets hurt if I give my word and then break it."

"Welladay," said Aizen at last in a voice that was subtly changed. Almost, it was respectful. "Do it your own way, then, Orihime. I care not what rules you follow so long as you do what I want in the long run. But make no more promises of that sort, for I want to know everything that is said to you."

And they turned through the high gate of Las Noches.

XxXxXxX

Orihime sat in the small, pretty chamber that she considered hers at Las Noches, waiting to be called down to supper and trying to pretend that she didn't miss Ichigo and Sora and the countryside. Here she was in the throng and excitement of London, which was what she had always wanted, so why did Ichigo's scowling face keep rising up in front of her?

At that moment Momo rushed in, without so much as a knock at the chamber door. "On your shambles, dell," she cried briskly. "Aizen-sama says to get you back in your old clothes and take you back to Hueco Mundo right away."

Orihime turned a shocked face to Momo. "Go back? What? He said—I mean, he let me think—"

"Ar, and now 'e says to go back." Momo produced the ragged old kirtle and bodice Orihime had been wearing when she came up from Hueco Mundo. "Shake your fambles, wench. You don't argue with Aizen-sama; you obey 'im."

Orihime gave in, silently fuming. Deprived of her pretty clothes and hating the shabby ones, she presently went with Momo out the servants' door and around and around London. Not, she noticed, the same way Aizen had brought her, but on another maze that repeated itself more than once. If she hadn't been so upset she might have tried to figure it out, but she was seething much too much.

Hueco Mundo was more unbearable than ever with its dirt and bugs, and to make it worse, she was catching a rheum which kept her coughing and sneezing and sniffling, with no kercher, apparently, to be had.

By the evening of the second day, she had reduced herself to a state of smoldering misery. And when Aizen sauntered quietly through the door, she was ready for him.

He greeted his Arrancar before he turned to Orihime, who looked like a brooding thunderstorm. "Lackaday," he observed, studying her with amusement. "What's amiss this time?"

"How dare you send me back to this verminous place?" she demanded.

He looked at her as if she were mildly interesting but not at all important. "It happened to suit my convenience."

"To suit—" she sputtered.

"My dear Orihime." Indulgence was gone, and his voice was a drench of cold water. "You and your wishes are not of the slightest importance. I shall keep you where I please, when I please; and if I choose that Hueco Mundo must put up with you, why then they'll do so. Is that quite understood?"

Enraged beyond endurance, Orihime doubled up her fist and struck him in the eye with it.

For an instant all the Arrancar were stunned. None of them could believe what had happened. A bishop might be attacked, or an ambassador, or even a king. But not Aizen-sama, who was only slightly less sacred, perfect, and godlike than Queen Bess herself. Grimmjow and Loly half rose, dying to strangle Orihime personally. The smaller urchins clutched one another, aghast; Rukia yelled, and Yammy blinked in pathetic bewilderment before deciding not to believe his eyes. Even the emotionless Ulquiorra frowned.

Aizen recoiled briefly, as astonished as anyone. Then he seized both her wrists in one hand and held her easily, surveying her with interest as she struggled.

"Oh, lackaday," he said regretfully. "I see I shall have to lesson thee, Orihime." And he held in his other hand the lithe willow switch reserved for such occasions.

It descended. Orihime let out a small choked yelp and whirled in his grasp to stare with incredulous eyes, as much shocked as hurt. The Arrancar jeered and giggled, and Orihime felt herself go hot and pink with humiliation. She couldn't bear it. Not in front of all the Arrancar!

Aizen's hand raised again, and suddenly Nel was clinging to it, whimpering. "Please," she whined, "don't 'urt 'er, Aizen-sama. 'Er's too fine, like. 'Er didn't mean it. Please don't! Yer kin beat me instead; is that orl raht?"

Aizen paused. He looked derisively at Nel, and then at Orihime. "Well?" he challenged her. "Shall Nel take the rest of it for you? She's only a low-class thief with no brains or birth or feelings, so it doesn't matter if –"

How easy it would be… Orihime shook her head violently, and then lowered it so that a curtain of hair hid her face. "Plague take you," she mumbled through it, and set her teeth.

"Well," said Aizen again, noncommittally, and pushing Nel out of the way, continued the punishment. The audience was perhaps a trifle less derisive now, but Orihime didn't notice. Still hidden behind her hair, she was concentrating on not being a baby in front of all of Hueco Mundo.

"Now up to bed with you, Orihime," said Aizen when it was over. "I'll make something of you yet."

Tight-lipped, blinking against the tears that welled dangerously along her eyelids, Orihime fled with very little dignity up the sagging stairs, and presently lay curled up on the pallet she shared with Nel. And then at last she began to cry, shaking and shuddering with sobs until, after a long, long time, she fell asleep.

XxXxXxX

She awoke stiff and smarting, with a sense of having been used as a shuttlecock or perhaps a tennis ball. She winced slightly and then peered up through the dimness of the room at the gaunt face of Nel hovering over her.

"Does it 'urt very much?" begged Nel. "It'll feel better soon, 'strewf; it allus does."

Her concern was deep and genuine, and it caused Orihime to feel quite strange. She regarded Nel with a mixture of shame and doubt. "Whatever did you do that for?"

"Wot?" asked Nel after a moment of blank silence.

"Last night," explained Orihime. "When I haven't been very kind… you keep acting as if you like me!"

"I does like you." Nel was surprised that there should be any question about it.

Orihime lifted her head. "Well, but why?" she asked.

Nel was quite unequal to this. "I just does," she said, helpless.

"But—" Orihime found that her lip was quivering, and she controlled it sternly. "I don't really see what I've done to deserve it." Nel was alarmed. Had the punishment addled Lady Orihime's wits?

"'Ow now," she said soothingly, and dared to pat the nearest arm. "A 'course yer does. You'm better nor me," she explained kindly, in case Orihime had temporarily forgotten this basic fact of life.

Orihime frowned. A number of basic facts in her life had been under considerable stress lately, and why not this? "Why?" she asked.

Nel decided she'd best humor her. "Same way I'm better nor a dog." Orihime failed to look completely satisfied at this, so Nel obligingly expounded. "Yer got birth 'n breeding; yer's pretty 'n clever: yer kin even read, haply. You'm gentry."

This was true and unarguable. But—but where was the virtue in it? Orihime frowned, groping with an idea that was utterly foreign to everything she had been taught all her life; indeed, everything her entire society believed.

"Well, but what did I ever do to merit all that?" she asked.

Nel looked baffled. Orihime, her teeth now firmly into the matter, worried it. "If Queen Bess saw you in Chepeside, when you were just standing there and not even begging, and gave you a whole basket of oranges, would that make you better than Loly?"

Nel giggled at the absurdity of the idea. "Nar, just luckier."

"Well, then!" Orihime wasn't quite sure what, if anything, this proved, but she felt strongly that whatever it was, it might be important. It had something to do with whether it was really quite fair to judge people by the fortunes of birth… She fell into deep thought.

When at last she ventured downstairs again, toward evening, it was with a somewhat new outlook on the Arrancar. Yammy was the first to notice. He was still guarding the door (since no one had told him to stop) when she appeared in front of him and began studying his face as if she had never seen it before. Yammy stared back apprehensively. But she astonished him with a brilliant smile, which caused him to gape at her dumbly, like a dog who has unexpectedly been patted instead of kicked.

Orihime almost choked. No one ought to look like a dog grateful not to be kicked. Not even a dog. It made her feel guilty. But then as she looked on the others entering the common room after the day's work, she found herself for the first time no longer seeing them as "lower orders" but as people like herself. It was true that maybe she had little in common with any of them – but then, neither did she with Meninas who was a member of her own class.

XxXxXxX

When Aizen came in the next night, he sensed a changed atmosphere, much less charged with hostility, somehow. Was Orihime tamed, then? A look at her discouraged this notion, for her shoulders were defiant and her eyes belligerent as she met his questioning gaze. He chuckled, satisfied. Good spirit there, not easily crushed. She'd shape up well with a bit more training.

"You'll begin your religious instruction at Lady Candice's next week," he informed her casually, and waited for her reaction.

But if he expected her to beg to return to Las Noches at once, he was disappointed. "And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" she demanded. "Just go on sitting here with Nel and Yammy wasting their time guarding me, when you might just as well let me go out and see London some more? You know perfectly well I shan't try to run away, at least until we know more about how to save the Queen, so—"

"What do you want to do? D'you want to beg, then?" he teased.

"No, I don't, and I don't think you'd let me if I did, because you said yourself I look silly dressed as a beggar. I just want to see London some more. And besides, I get exceedingly bad-tempered and stupid just stuck here all day, which I should think would be very bad for my instruction. It might make me miss something important I ought to notice, or perhaps say the wrong thing myself, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"I think I had best begin training you as a blackmailer," said Aizen admiringly. "You begin to show the most remarkable natural aptitude!"

Orihime shrugged off the implied compliment. "Yes, but may I go out and see London?"

"Oh, very well," agreed Aizen, and turned to the nightly practice with purses and pockets.

XxXxXxX

It was a golden but sharp-winded June day, of the sort that should never be spent in a hot and dirty city, but in the green and birdsong of the country. Surrey, for choice, thought Ichigo regretfully, taking up his position at the front door of St. Paul's with a kind of hopeless doggedness. It seemed as if he had been searching London for months and months. Was he addle-pated? Was she even now safely at home, where she'd said she was going? It was idiotic to spend the lovely summer here for no other reason than that something quite irrational in his spirit told him that Orihime was here and needed him. Uryuu had stopped arguing the point with him, and merely looked pained. Lord Ishida clearly thought Ichigo was losing his wits. And Ichigo was no longer so certain that he wasn't.

And yet here he was, at his fruitless vigil, because he knew she was in London and could think of no better place to watch for her. He slumped his shoulders against the doorway, discouraged. People swarmed in and out, no one paying any attention to him. It had been established by now that he was a permanent fixture—doubtless an eccentric of some sort… He'd never find her! It was hopeless, ridiculous! If only he'd hear from Sora! Why hadn't he answered Lord Ishida's letter asking whether Orihime had come home? Perhaps he should write again? It was easy enough for something to happen to a letter going a long distance like that…

His mind went on and on, while his eyes stared at the entrance, so tired after all these days that they sometimes unfocused, or refused to register what they saw, or even saw people who weren't there. This was alarming, for suppose Orihime walked right past and his eyes failed to register the fact?

There, they were playing tricks again, so that the shabby maid coming in with another girl and a great hulking lad seemed exactly like Orihime. Ichigo blinked and shook his head. It still seemed like Orihime. The shabby hood hid the hair, but— Ichigo left his doorway and began to follow.

It was Orihime! There was simply no mistaking the cadences of her voice or the way she walked, and presently she pushed her hood off, so that he could see the apricot hair, as well. But what in Tophet was she doing in those clothes and with such unprepossessing companions? In the act of marching up to her in order to ask these questions, Ichigo had a second thought, and paused. Something was decidedly odd. Why was she dressed like a servant? And why did the two with her hover so closely? He frowned, considering these things and also the pricks his intuition was giving him. Usually perfectly trustworthy on anything to do with Orihime, it was now strongly suggesting caution. So with a prudence that went very much against his grain, Ichigo settled himself down to following.


	6. Chapter 6

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 12/23/14.)

XxXxXxX

It was very puzzling indeed. Sometimes Orihime and her odd companions seemed like sightseers, and sometimes she seemed to be taking instruction from them; and the people they seemed to recognize were a very peculiar assortment indeed.

Out of St. Paul's they went at last, and up around through Paternoster Row to Chepeside, where they plunged into crowds as into water. This was the widest street in London, and filled with humanity.

Unnoticed in the throng and noise, Ichigo moved closer to his quarry. He had no intention of losing sight of Orihime now. His eyes remained glued to her back and the familiar profile that showed every few seconds as she tried to look at everything at once. Because Ichigo was watching her so intently, he found himself noticing what she noticed—and an extraordinary series of things it was, too. A small child whipping up a scrap of skirt with professional skill to show the ugly open sores on her leg. A sober young merchant's clerk, who seemed to cause gusts of mirth from Orihime and her companions, and who gave them an oddly playful threatening gesture. A blue-haired urchin with sharp white teeth who gave Orihime a cheeky grin and then neatly picked a pocket and vanished.

A great tucket of trumpets and considerable shouting from ahead suggested to Ichigo that someone important was coming. Someone important but unpopular, he decided, as the tucketing was followed by renewed shouting of a decidedly unflattering nature.

"Way for the Wandenreich Ambassador!"

The Londoners obeyed, but with great reluctance, and only because of the very large armed guard and because Queen Bess didn't like them to be too rude to foreigners. They weren't, felt the Londoners, being too rude: just reasonably outspoken.

"Plotter!" they bawled. "Quincy! Assassin! Wandenreich, go home!" And then, just to make sure the point got across, they threw some mud and filth from the most convenient gutters.

Ichigo grinned, in perfect agreement with the Londoners. Jugram Haschwalth was at best an arrogant man who told highly-colored tales to his master Yhwach and who tried to bully Queen Elizabeth, and at worst was up to his neck in plots to murder. Ichigo, along with the Londoners, firmly suspected the worst.

They were just warming up, too. More mud was being gathered as the ornate coach approached. With one eye fixed firmly on Orihime, Ichigo was preparing to watch the show when a small pandemonium erupted a few feet away, turned into a snarl of children, and then ejected a small black kitten followed by a dark-haired moppet with a determined face. They launched themselves one after the other almost under the front hooves of the first horse and vanished into the throng on the other side.

The horse reared. The crowd cheered and urged it to trample the Wandenreich Ambassador. A series of small boys catapulted after the girl, this time just behind the first horse and under the nose of the second. More rearing and cheering, and a great pepper of hot foreign remarks from the Ambassador's coachmen and guard.

And then, taking Ichigo completely by surprise, Orihime hurled herself across the path of the third horse, followed instantly by her two companions and a large bosomy girl with brassy hair. After which the gaps closed firmly, Ambassador Haschwalth's procession passed with all the heavy stolidity of Wandenreich manufacture, and most of London pressed forward to tell him what would happen to him if anyone whatsoever should harm a hair of their Queen's head. Ichigo, using language that would have surprised even his father, was forced to stand helplessly where he was until the whole thing was over; and then, of course, Orihime had completely vanished.

"Marry!" said an old woman with great admiration. "'Tis a most wondrous fine bit o' swearing', that, m'lad. But," she added regretfully, "'e's out o' 'earin' now, that 'aschwalth is. Best save it for next time." She went off shaking her wispy gray head and muttering darkly. And Ichigo stood still, sick with disappointment and anger.

XxXxXxX

Orihime hadn't the faintest notion that Ichigo had been just behind her for more than an hour, but she had, unaccountably, been thinking of him all afternoon. How very nice it would be to see his brown eyes and spiky orange hair and even his scowling expression. Moreover, Ichigo wouldn't fool about and delay over this plot against Her Majesty; he'd do something, and at once. Orihime was sure of that. Suppose Lady Candice and her plotting friends went ahead and did whatever they were planning while Aizen was still wasting time? The fear haunted Orihime, creeping through the back of her mind to thin her new appreciation of London.

Still, it was a glorious day. Nel and Yammy pointed out things she might have missed. There was Grimmjow picking a pocket—and Starrk posing as a merchant's clerk and glaring at her whispered jibe—and Rukia cutting her first purse. And then came the Wandenreich Ambassador. Orihime stood alongside the crowd, ready like everyone else to speak her mind to the man.

But she never finished saying what she thought of Ambassador Haschwalth. The snarl of children that erupted was almost at her elbow, and it involved Rukia. Trying, as usual, to rescue a kitten. And pursued by several of the meanest little boys Orihime had ever seen. They'd have no mercy on a kitten, nor on Rukia, either. Without debating the matter for an instant, Orihime dashed to the rescue.

The crowd on the other side of the horses swore horribly at having still another swathe cut through just as it was getting warmed up. Orihime didn't notice. She ducked and wriggled and bored her way through, following the sounds of battle. Just between Friday Street and Bread Street, there was a deep doorway, almost an alley. Rukia stood there, backed against a wall, clutching the squalling kitten heroically against her thin chest, yelling at full volume, and doing battle with the remaining hand and one foot against the swarm of savage little street urchins.

Orihime, although she had never fought against children like this, planted herself firmly in front of Rukia, ready to defend her. To the boys, it had become a battle to the death. A dirk was out, and another.

And then Yammy was there; and the gang, whimpering, was being bounced off walls and flung out into the crowd or onto the cobbles like rag dolls. Orihime hesitated briefly, feeling a little sorry for the poor little brats, who after all were behaving in the only way they had ever known. Then a duet of yowls from behind her caused her to turn her attention to Rukia and the kitten, who were both exceedingly unhappy. Tears poured down Rukia's dirty face as the terrified animal clawed her.

"Leggo!" came Nel's shocked voice, followed by Rangiku's more commanding one. "Put it down, Rukia!"

Rukia shook her head. Her small mouth, turned downward in pain, was clamped valiantly shut, and she sidled back along the wall to escape Rangiku's grasp. She plainly meant to fight off the entire world to keep her treasure, even if the treasure clawed her to death while she did it.

But she didn't need to, after all. Orihime had her cloak off, and swooped it neatly around the screeching fury before anyone could blink. "There," she said, lifting it from Rukia's torn arms, rolling it up once more, and then handing it back. "Now let's take it home to Hueco Mundo and wash your wounds."

They all stared: Rukia with incredulous joy, the others with dismay. "You can't take it 'ome!" they told her, shocked.

"Yes, we can," Orihime said. "You don't think we'd let it go after all this trouble rescuing it, do you? Besides, Hueco Mundo needs someone to catch mice; they're like to drive us out some day and take the place over. Come along, then, Rukia; do you want me to carry it for a bit, or will you?"

Rukia stared at her for a long moment, the sharp little face looking more peaky than ever with the birth pangs of a brand new emotion. Then, for the first time in her short life, she deliberately gave her full trust to another human being. She put the squalling, lurching, clawing cloak into Orihime's arms and fell into step beside her.

XxXxXxX

Separate, either Orihime or Rukia was a force to reckon with. United, they were overwhelming. They marched back to Hueco Mundo trailing a feebly protesting Rangiku and a Nel and Yammy no longer protesting at all. There, ignoring Ulquiorra's scowl, they unrolled the cloak and released a scrawny black whirlwind. It leaped straight into the air with a shriek that made Rukia look envious, and then circumnavigated the room twice, screeching disapproval.

"Coo!" breathed Nel, awed. "'S like a bleedin' bird!"

"Or a mole," added Orihime, as the kitten dropped to the floor, burrowed under the stinking rushes, and began to explore, still wailing, but rather half-heartedly. It had even more curiosity, it seemed, than most cats, and also the soul of a collector. The black triangle of its head popped suddenly up from the deep rushes near Rukia, and stared around apprehensively.

"Wah?" it inquired with a rakish air that was largely due to having snow-white whiskers on one side only.

"It looks like Persephone coming up out of the Underworld," giggled Orihime.

"Purse-Effony," echoed Rukia, breathing hard and never taking her eyes off her hard-won pet. "'At's a good name. 'Er's 'ungry, Orihime."

"Ay, to be sure," agreed Orihime. "Give her something from the pot, Ulquiorra, do."

Ulquiorra grunted in an extremely negative way, and the others looked scandalized. Give food to an animal? Unthinkable! Even Rukia looked doubtful.

Orihime was beginning to understand things better than she had. "Call it part of my supper, and I'll take less," she urged, though with a slight pang, for she was hungry enough to eat Hueco Mundo fare with relish. "Just this once. Soon she'll be catching mice for herself," she added cunningly. Ulquiorra might—as they all did—accept rats and mice as an inescapable fact of life, but he still was unhappy when one ran over his pallet at night.

Rangiku, who yelped whenever one came nearby, at once took on the air of someone about to be converted against her will. Ulquiorra looked slightly less negative. They didn't like the idea on general principles; and what Aizen would say, they couldn't imagine. But somehow a small pannikin of porridge was grudgingly ladled out and handed to Orihime, who passed it to Rukia, who set it down at the spot where the kitten had last emerged from the rushes.

"Purse-Effony," she called in such a soft, sweet voice that they all stared at her, amazed.

The black head reappeared presently, looking astonished. No one had ever offered Persephone food before. Ears flattened, she cautiously approached the dish, wary of the small dirty hand so near. Hunger won.

The kitten was just finishing when the front door groaned, footsteps clattered along the narrow corridor, and Loly and Menoly appeared, already fishing loot from assorted hiding places in their clothing. They paused in the doorway to the common room, puzzled by an unusual atmosphere.

"Eee," said the kitten amiably, polishing up the last drop and cocking a wary ear at the newcomers.

"What," demanded Loly, "is that?"

"Purse-Effony," Rukia informed her with an air of greatly superior intellect.

The kitten, having finished her meal, decided to set about exploring. She had moved out the door and was considering which of the narrow corridors to take, when the door moaned again and a covey of small boys led by Renji charged in and nearly fell over the small creature, who at once turned into a spitting demon and vanished down the nearest branch of the maze.

"Coo!" exclaimed Renji, coming into the common room. "Wot was 'at? Devil's cat? I fink I saw 'orns on 'im."

Yammy, who had been silently struggling with a dim and buried idea for at least an hour now, finally remembered what it was. "Ar," he said. "'At's it. Black cats is witches' cats."

"Who says so?" Orihime demanded at once, aggressively. "How do you know? Can you prove it?"

Yammy, who couldn't in the least remember who said so, and had never heard of proving things, subsided in confusion. He perceived dimly that he had said the wrong thing, and that Orihime, Nel, and Rukia were all frowning at him. They ranged themselves in a solid block against the rest of Hueco Mundo, who were uncertain whether to be hostile or amused. Ulquiorra went on stirring the pot, the door kept up a steady complaint, and the Arrancar trickled in, heard the story, and took sides. Yammy sidled sheepishly over to stand behind Orihime. And the kitten trotted back, surveyed the crowd doubtfully, and submerged under the rushes once more, either for safety or (as Orihime claimed) to hunt for treasure.

"Besides," she declared, struck by sudden inspiration, "this isn't just an ordinary black cat; _'tis a black cat with white whiskers on one side_!" Her voice was reverent, triumphant. She paused, clearly giving them time to rejoice. They eyed her uncertainly, never having heard anything special about a black cat with white whiskers on one side, but hating to admit it.

"Didn't you know?" cried Orihime, amazing herself with her own quick-wittedness. "Why, 'tis the best possible luck! 'Tis the mark of—of—Demeter! And it brings wondrous good fortune if you care for it and it likes you, but the most terrible ill luck if you harm it or cast it out." And she looked menacingly first at Renji and the little boys, and then at Loly.

Loly looked skeptical. But Menoly's eyes widened in her dirty face, and she nudged Loly with a scaly elbow. "Coo, Loly! 'Strewf! Show 'em wot yer got terday!"

Loly blinked, and then slowly drew out of her bodice a fine jewel, worth a small fortune. It was a fabulous bit of loot, and almost guaranteed Loly's promotion soon to Las Noches. It also turned the tide in favor of Persephone. Especially when Rukia remembered the purse she had cut—her very first—and it proved to have gold pieces in it.

This was indeed evidence! Orihime even found herself rejoicing with the others before she remembered that all this stealing was very wicked, and she probably should be warning them about hell-fire. But she found she couldn't. For one thing, it was much nicer not to be accusing them all the time. Anyway, if they didn't steal or at least beg, how would they live? As long as Orihime couldn't answer this, she felt she had better not raise the matter.

When Aizen did his appearing act much later that evening, he found himself standing in the doorway quite unnoticed, staring at a most extraordinary scene. All the Arrancar were sprawled amid the rushes on the floor concentrating on what seemed to be a small but active earthquake down below.

After a moment the earthquake appeared, in the form of a scrawny black kitten with an ancient bit of pig's knuckle in her mouth and a defiant air that dared anyone to take it away from her. She headed purposefully for the door, paused for a suspicious slinking detour around Aizen's feet (which seemed to make her nervous), and vanished into the corridor.

Aizen turned his head to stare after her, bemused. The Arrancar, perceiving him for the first time, fell into uneasy silence. "What," demanded Aizen, just as Loly had done, "is that?" And his eye fell quite naturally on Rukia as the probable instigator, though what had got into Loly and Starrk and Ulquiorra he couldn't imagine.

Rukia stuck her chin out. "Purse-Effony!" she shouted defiantly. "'Er's mine! 'N Orihime's, too," she added generously.

Aizen turned his surprised gaze to Orihime. The change he had noticed last night seemed to be expanding. Was the little baggage actually encouraging Rukia in defiance of his authority? Aizen bent an eye of tolerant godly wrath upon them both. "What did I tell you about picking up stray animals?" he demanded of Rukia quellingly.

"This 'n's different," she assured him. "It's a lucky cat. 'S got white whiskers on one side, 'n that's lucky."

"Indeed?" An arched eyebrow arched higher. "And who told you that tale?"

"Ar, but 'tis true, Aizen-sama! 'Strewf! Look 'ere!" They all crowded forward eagerly with their bits of proof, Loly's splendid jewel in the place of honor. Indeed, it had been an unusually good day. Aizen hesitated. It wouldn't at all do to have his authority undermined… but on the other hand, it might really be a good luck cat. One heard of such things. And it might be well enough to have a mouser, in any case, provided his Arrancar wanted it, which they seemed to. Aizen liked them to be happy. Contented people worked much more enthusiastically and efficiently, for one thing.

Persephone hurried back, having hidden her treasure to her satisfaction, and sniffed worriedly at Aizen's feet. She licked one experimentally, and then sprawled appealingly on her back, both to disarm hostility and for a better look up at the owner.

Aizen raised his other eyebrow, stared down his nose for an instant, and then laughed and rolled the kitten over gently with his toe. "I'sooth, I'd like to train you," he observed. "What a cunning dell you'd make, to be sure, little wheedler! Welladay." He looked at them all, especially Rukia and Orihime. "Let it stay, then, as long as your behavior pleases me. You're a clever little nipper, Rukia my poppet; 'twas a nice purse indeed. Now show me again on the practice one. No need to get cocky; remember that lad who turned up his toes on the nubbing cheat only last week because he got careless, and he no older than seven. Come along Renji, and you others." And the nightly practice was on.

But Orihime confronted him later, before he could do his usual vanishing act, fists on hips. "What day next week do I start my instruction?" she demanded. "Oughtn't we to hurry? I mean, the Queen—"

"You don't trust the Queen to take proper care of her own safety, do you, Orihime?" he observed, amused.

"Well, no, I don't. Because she's much too tenderhearted about that villainous Mary of Scotland, you know. If you were Queen Bess, you wouldn't go on paying a lot of money to keep Mary quite comfortably locked up while she went on and on making silly wicket plots with foreigners to kill you and steal your country, now would you? And those vile plotters might kill Queen Bess any minute. So if we told Yamamoto right away—"

"Don't get in a tweak, Orihime," he said. "No need to worry. These plots drag on and on for months and years. Every idea they hatch has to be sent back and forth between Mary and France and Wandenreich and London and wherever else the plotters happen to be. You needn't worry. D'you think I'd risk letting a good bit of business slip through my fingers?"

Orihime slanted her eyebrow scornfully, but there was no use reproaching him, for he had no sense of shame. He nodded affably.

"I'll send for you when I want you. In the meantime I may not be back for a few days, but you may go out again as long as you behave yourself. But—" He smiled suddenly. "No more animals!"

There was a relieved silence when he had gone. Then Rukia turned her back on the hawkbelled purses and marched over to Orihime.

"Wot was the other Purse-Effony, and wot was 'er doing under the ground?"

Orihime blinked twice and then grasped the connection. "Oh," she said. "Persephone came back up from the Underworld after Hades stole her, you know."

But of course Rukia didn't know. No one in all of Hueco Mundo had ever heard of a Greek myth—or even of a Greek. Curious eyes turned from pocket practice or kitten-watching, sensing something interesting.

"'Oo stole 'oo?" It was Starrk, who was the cleverest of the older boys.

"Wot's 'ades?" asked Nel.

"Tell us a story," commanded Rukia, coming to the heart of the matter with a bellow that attracted the attention of everyone not already listening.

Orihime was silent for a moment, absorbing this fresh discovery of how deprived their lives were. No myths. No stories, or history, or geography, or languages. No books, of course: books being rare and expensive even with the printing press having been invented over a hundred years ago. Orihime had never before fully appreciated the privilege of being able to read and write. And these… Really, life did seem to be most outrageously unfair, and it seemed up to her to correct the situation as much as she could. And why not?

"A long long time ago—" she began.

"Before I was born?"

"Oh, _much_ before."

"Before the Queen was born?"

"Before the Queen's great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was born," said Orihime impressively.

This created an awed and disbelieving silence. Loly tossed her dark head and talked loudly to Menoly and Rangiku, refusing to listen at all. But the others moved closer. Orihime might be telling wild lies, but this was a talent rather than a drawback in Hueco Mundo.

"Anyway," she went on, "there were some people called Greeks, and they were very clever, and built most wondrous buildings and statues, and wrote plays, and everyone went to see them in big theaters. And they had lots of stories called myths, mostly about a lot of gods who lived on a mountain called Olympus, except for Hades, who was god of the Underworld. And one day when he was out riding, he saw this girl named Persephone…"

She had her audience. They listened in breathless silence as she told about the kidnapping and return of Persephone, and then of Theseus and the Minotaur. Quite suddenly she realized that the entire evening had fled and that her voice was hoarse. She stopped. There was a silence, a deep general sigh.

"Garn!" sighed Rangiku, who had long ago stopped pretending not to listen. "I ain't never 'eard anyfing like that in all me life. 'Ow'd yer ever 'ear such tales?"

"My mother and father told me first, and then I read them," said Orihime apologetically.

"Tell us more!" demanded Rukia, twitching at Orihime's kirtle.

"I will," Orihime promised. "I—I could teach you to read," she suggested diffidently.

There was a perfectly stunned silence while they coped with this idea. Starrk gaped, Loly tossed an angry head, and several other heads shook in alarm at the very thought. Reading was not for the likes of them! But Rukia and Renji volunteered at once. Nel followed suit, breathless at her own daring and not sure what it was all about, but willing to agree to anything Orihime suggested. Then Rangiku, Grimmjow, and several of the smaller urchins, joined in. Presently Orihime had a small class earnestly learning their letters, bursting now and again into shrill astonishment at discovering that each of those odd-shaped marks stood for a sound.

"I always thought 'twere magic," confessed Starrk gravely, with a wondering expression on his sleepy face. "This way it don't need ter be magic; it makes sense… Is that the water-coming-out-of-a-bottle-sound one?"

"No, that's the all-out-of-breath one," said Orihime patiently. "You can't learn it all at once, you know, and it must be terribly late. Just remember these three. This is B-b-b for water-out-of-a-bottle; and this is H-h-h, for all-out-of-breath; and here's W-w-w, the wind letter. Now do let's go to bed, or you'll all be horribly clumsy and stupid tomorrow and get caught and end up on the—the nubbing cheat."

They looked at her with approval. Milady Orihime was turning out to be quite human, after all.

XxXxXxX

This time it was Uryuu who spotted Orihime in Chepeside. It was true that he had never seen her, but after all, there couldn't be very many young girls with apricot-colored hair who were accompanied by a large, vacant-faced young man and a gaunt, tall, anxious-looking maid.

With a sigh, Uryuu abandoned the hawkbells he was bargaining over, and followed. All the way down to Billingsgate on the Thames he trailed them, not realizing his luck that it was only Yammy and Nel with Orihime. Any other of Aizen's Arrancar would have noticed Uryuu almost at once, and arranged for a highly unpleasant accident. As it was, Uryuu thought himself very hard done by, for it was the better part of three hours before his quarry made their way back to Hueco Mundo, opened the complaining door, and vanished behind it.

Uryuu stood there for a moment, puzzling. The idea of going in after them seemed highly impractical. Nor did he like the idea of staying there very long. It was not a very nice alley. It stank more than most, and some very unprepossessing people seemed to be wandering past. Some of them even went in that same complaining door, including the girl with brassy hair whom Ichigo had described, and some others who made Uryuu's hair stand on end. Hastily he made a mental note of the place and swung off around the corner. Much better to tell Ichigo and let him decide what to do.

He turned a second corner and found himself unexpectedly among nice old houses with walled gardens, and trees showing above the walls. Not of the first quality, but good enough for wealthy merchants and lesser gentry. What an extraordinary place London was, where fine houses stood practically back-to-back with squalor! He went on his way quite unaware that there was anything significant in the passing thought—or in the tall, brown-haired man with a fine velvet cloak who sauntered out of one of those houses escorted by a massive bodyguard.

But when he brought Ichigo back to show him where Orihime had gone, he couldn't find the place at all. He wasn't even sure of the alley. "'Twas near here somewhere—I think," he mourned, scowling at a row of houses that all seemed the exact duplicate of the one sought.

"Flea-brained idiot!" said Ichigo, considerably annoyed. "Couldn't you have noticed where it was?"

"I did. Or at least I tried to." Uryuu sounded irritated, but it was mostly at himself. He was now beginning to take Ichigo seriously, and to consider the plight of a delicate (if foolish) maiden in this sort of place. "Vile neighborhood," he remarked, horrified by what he saw around him, and thankful for the armed servants he had brought with him this time. "All these foul alleys look just alike! I remember that there were quite nice houses just behind…"

His voice trailed away, discouraged. Ichigo was staring around with an angry, appalled face. He was suddenly furious that people should live like this. Anyone, of course, could have told him that it was perfectly normal and therefore right: the nature of things. Now, faced with it, Ichigo began to entertain serious and indignant doubts. In the first place, who said it was the nature of things? And in the second place, if it really was, then, decided Ichigo, with his typical directness, the nature of things should be changed.

He pulled himself out of the rage with an effort, though it had only showed itself on his face with a slight deepening of his characteristic scowl. Orihime first.

Setting his lips rather tightly, and deliberately shutting out the wretched conditions around him, Ichigo went on doggedly searching—actually passing Hueco Mundo's entrance once. But by then Uryuu was quite incapable of remembering. All the houses and alleys had run together hopelessly in his mind. They went home at length in a state of profound depression.

XxXxXxX

"But my dear boy!" Lord Ishida looked harassed. "What do you expect me to do? I can't search the whole rabbit warren of London!"

"No." Ichigo conceded this with what he considered great generosity. "But you can lend me some men-at-arms, or even ordinary servants, and let me scatter them around to watch for her. I'll just tell them to follow any young girl with apricot-colored hair and grey eyes," he added, forestalling the obvious objection.

Lord Ishida looked relieved to be getting off so easily. "Eh? Oh, yes, yes, by all means. Take a dozen." Ichigo looked unsatisfied. "Take a score for need. And good luck." And he hurried out of the room with the air of a man who has a great deal on his mind.

Ichigo looked after him speculatively, and then at Uryuu, who had been showing some of the same disquieting symptoms of late. Like people trying to pretend they weren't sitting on thorns. For the high-strung Uryuu, this was particularly remarkable, and it suddenly occurred to Ichigo that it wasn't due to worry about Orihime. They didn't even know her. There was something else bothering them.

"What's amiss?" he asked. "Or is it a family matter?"

"Family matter?" Uryuu looked startled.

"Well, you and your father both seem distraught of late… and if there is something I could do to help… If it didn't mean stopping my search for Orihime, of course…"

"I don't know what's amiss with Father," said Uryuu flatly. "Mine is a sort of—well, an ethical problem." He looked embarrassed. "The thing is, I don't even know if I've the right to talk about it."

"Well, don't, if you doubt," said Ichigo at once.

"I think I need to," Uryuu decided. "I supposed it's my duty to take it to Father, but I can't; he's got problems of his own. Hypothetically, Ichigo, if you've got one loyalty to your country and Queen, and another to your religion and family… what do you do, pray tell?"

"Oh, is that it?" said Ichigo with considerable sympathy. Lord Ishida and his son were of the Quincy faith, and Ichigo had often wondered how Uryuu and other Quincies coped with the situation Yhwach had put them in when he proclaimed his Declaration of Excommunication against Queen Elizabeth. It declared that she was not the true monarch of England, and that they were not her subjects and must render no obedience. In short, it forced English Quincies to choose between loyalty to Church or to country—and added the most persuasive threat of hell-fire and damnation should they decide wrongly.

Uryuu was looking at Ichigo, startled. "You mean you know?"

"I'm not an idiot," said Ichigo with a scowl, staring at the fine old tapestry on the wall rather than at Uryuu's face. "I know you're a Quincy, don't I? But cock's bones, Uryuu; I don't know what you should do! You mean you haven't made up your mind?"

Uryuu hunched his shoulders and turned to stare out of the window, down to the charming formal gardens below and the Thames beyond, where ferrymen and barges and small sailing boats plied their busy ways. "It isn't that, quite," he muttered. "Father and I are both loyal to the Queen, mark you, Ichigo. I thought you meant—" He paused, took a deep breath. "Marry, I don't blame those who obey the Declaration; hell's a plaguey uncomfortable place. Only… Ichigo, I think there's another plot afoot. Against the Queen's life. A big one, I mean; more than just the usual sort of thing that goes on all the time. And some of our friends and cousins are in on it."

Ichigo whistled soundlessly, and his fists clenched with the sharp desire to use them on anyone who threatened the Queen.

"I could be wrong," Uryuu went on. "But that little pea-goose Meninas, the daughter of Lady Candice, keeps hinting about something she calls The Enterprise. I keep thinking it can't really be anything serious if she's in on it… but what if it is, Ichigo?" He turned his face to Ichigo, and on it was a sharp, worried look. "Is it my duty to report my own friends and kin, when I'm not even sure about it, and most of England is ready to hang Quincies just on suspicion? Can I keep silence and risk the Queen's life? Ichigo, I'm a traitor either way I look at it!"

Ichigo stared at him in dismay, all thoughts of Orihime struck from his mind for the moment. "Cock's bones!" he said, and joined Uryuu in a long and brooding silence while the clouds scudded across the sky so quickly that the sun seemed to flash in and out like a blinking eye. The tapestry rippled as a brisk breeze blew through the room. At last Ichigo took a deep breath.

"Uryuu, it's a case of the lesser evil and the greater loyalty, and that's something you have to decide for yourself. And the only way to do that is to learn more about this Enterprise. No help for it, Uryuu; you'll have to flirt with this Meninas until you can get some more out of her."

"Spying on my friends!" mourned Uryuu. "'Tis a vile thing to have to do! And I don't even like flirting with Meninas," he added, shoulders sagging. "She's such a self-centered, obnoxious little goose."

"Never mind; think how much worse 'twould be were she the maiden of your dreams," Ichigo told him briskly. Uryuu stared, much struck by this. "Besides, it may be all her imagination, in which case you'll not be spying at all, but perhaps saving her from real trouble…"

Uryuu was looking much more cheerful. "Certes, you're right, and I shall have to decide one way or another. Can't just sit around and worry until 'tis too late. Besides which, I've just had a brave notion. You can come help me flirt with Meninas."

"I've got to look for Orihime!" protested Ichigo, alarmed. "Besides, I'm not a Quincy, so I wouldn't be—"

"So much the better," Uryuu declared. "You've no loyalties to betray. You've got to, Ichigo; didn't I help you look for Orihime?"

"But—" said Ichigo.

XxXxXxX

"Oh, yes, Ichigo Kurosaki. I've heard about you. You're that comical boy staying with Uryuu who keeps running around saying his little sweetheart is lost in London."

Ichigo looked at the speaker with great dislike. Her hair was a most improbable shade of dark purple, she was wearing a frilly skirt, her voice was high and artificial, and he could not honestly feel that they would ever become friends. He scowled.

"Oh, aye, I'm quite mad," he agreed. "Save only on Green Wednesdays. Then I become sober, but after one look at society I start foaming at the mouth, and bite whoever is nearest to hand, and go mad again." He permitted his eyes to roll just a trifle.

"Oh," said Purple-hair doubtfully, and began hastily to count up what day it was. She backed away with a nervous giggle, leaving Ichigo in possession of the field.

"Rogue!" said another voice, and he looked around to see his hostess, Lady Candice, looking somewhat reproachful. "Did my poor daughter deserve that?"

"Yes," said Ichigo firmly, and met her eye. She was a pleasant-looking lady who didn't at all look like a person who could be plotting treason and murder.

"Well," she conceded, "mayhap she did. Still, you are being laughed about, you know." She studied him. "You don't look mad. What makes you think this girl is in London?"

"I know her," said Ichigo. "Besides, Uryuu and I have both seen her and lost her again. At least, I think it was she," he added. "I couldn't mistake that red hair."

"My dear boy, half the females in England are wearing red hair these days!" An acid note in her voice caused Ichigo to look at her with new and sudden interest.

"Don't you like red hair?" he inquired politely.

She laughed, scorning pretense. "What you're really asking, of course, is don't I like the Queen? You shinigami! You think every Quincy in England is hatching plots."

"Aye," said Ichigo. "I wonder how we can have got that notion?"

She smiled at him. "Of course I wish for a legitimate ruler who would lead England back to the True Religion. It does not mean that I am plotting criminal actions. But I wouldn't be a good Quincy if I didn't wish for that."

"But you'd force all men to be Quincy even against their own consciences." Ichigo frowned.

"Aye, heartily!" She looked surprised. "'Twould be for your own good, you know, to save your souls."

Ichigo shrugged. He had heard the same thing often enough, and from both sides, each certain that they had the only truth and the only way to heaven.

"Why not let us all decide for ourselves?" he suggested, knowing that the idea would be shocking and offensive to both sides… to everyone, nearly, but Queen Bess, who had once said that they all worshipped the same god and all else was a dispute over trifles.

"Poor deluded boy!" Lady Candice looked sincerely distressed at such heresy. "I would so much like to save your soul." She sighed. "I'm saving a sweet girl named Oriana, and it's such a wonderful feeling. But I doubt you will ever let me. Never mind; let it be, and tell me why you think you should be able to recognize this one red head amidst such swarms of them."

"Because no one else has that shade of red," Ichigo told her, dropping the subject with relief. "It's the color of apricots, and I've never seen such a color on anyone else."

"But I have." She smiled kindly, sorry to be dealing him a blow. "My little convert Oriana has hair just that shade, and I saw it only a few days ago on a little serving maid in Chepeside, as well. It's not so uncommon as all that, dear boy."

Then she nodded and moved off, leaving Ichigo in a profound state of discouragement at the nature of things.

For some reason, his mind filled once more with thoughts of Orihime, and a wish to hear her sweet voice and discuss the matter with someone with a clear, sharp mind. She would never hesitate to argue with him, but at the same time, she was always willing to see another side of the situation, to feel compassion even for those who disagreed with her or chastised her. His intuition pricked him again, suggesting that perhaps he was quite close to finding her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 7**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 2/2/15.)

XxXxXxX

Overnight the new and fascinating game of learning to read had taken over at Hueco Mundo. The practice pouches were nearly abandoned, despite Ulquiorra's dour looks. Everyone was either actively learning letters or taking a deep interest in the lessons – except for Loly and her cronies. And even Loly, for all her scorn, was always there and watching; and Orihime had a shrewd suspicion that she was managing to learn quite as much as everyone else.

The best of the pupils was undeniably Rukia, who became quite cocky about it until Orihime, with a burst of inspiration, set her to helping some of the slower and younger ones. Then she developed a sweet patience that astounded everyone. (She made up for it, of course, the rest of the time.)

The young ones learned the fastest on the whole. The older ones (especially Nel and Yammy) had a lot of difficulty, and Orihime began using stories as a bribe. Not until everyone had made enough progress to suit her would she curl up with Persephone purring in her lap and begin a tale of ancient Greece – or of her own home and family and Ichigo, which to the Arrancar was just as fabulous and unreal as any myth. They took a particular fancy to the mischievous Hermes – and to Ichigo!

"Well, they aren't a bit alike!" Orihime informed them rather tartly. "Ichigo doesn't approve of mischief, and he's always trying to prevent me from having adventures. He says he's 'protecting'me."

"Maybe he just don't want yer ter 'ave all the fun wivout 'im," suggested Rangiku shrewdly. "He usually goes along wiv yer if he's around, don't 'e?"

Orihime sighed. Ichigo's overprotectiveness was kind of sweet (although she would never admit it out loud), but it did mean that he played the role of a stodgy spoil-sport in her modern myths; and although it was not, perhaps, strictly accurate, surely she was allowed a little artistic license.

"He's not a bit like Hermes," she repeated firmly.

"But us likes 'em both, all the same," said Grimmjow, giving her a buck-toothed grin and then turning back to the letters he was tracing on a bare patch of wall. There weren't many bare patches left, most of the lower half being covered with scratch marks. "That time yer fell in the pond together, wot did Ichigo due to yer after 'e pulled yer out? Smack yer?"

Orihime declined to answer. She was leaning over Nel, who still hadn't grasped the idea that a particular shape stood for a special sound. What would happen when they got to long vowels, Orihime hated to think. As for Yammy, he had triumphantly learned to make the snake letter – albeit backwards – and was apparently resting on his laurels.

On the other hand, there was Rukia. Orihime glanced over at her fiercely defended bit of wall, where the little girl was writing her name.

RUKIA, she had written. RUKKIA, RUKYA, RUUKIA. She looked at them, dirty head tilted to one side. She could not decide which one she preferred.

Nel frowned over the N which Orihime had scratched with a bit of white stone on the hearth. "Is it the wind letter?" she guessed hopefully.

"Well… You're closer." Orihime was determined to find some encouraging angle. "But it hasn't got as many lines in it as W, see? Think again. Remember what –"

Something clicked. "Nnnn!" crowed Nel. "'Tis me name sound!"

Orihime clapped her hands. "Wonderful, Nel!"

Nel was nearly beside herself with pride, and Orihime with triumph for the both of them. They hugged each other joyfully. Rukia, roaring with high spirits, bounced up and down like a ball. Persephone yowled, and all the other pupils stopped what they were doing and made as much noise as they possibly could.

In the middle of it, Aizen walked in.

"What's to do?" he demanded into the din, not entirely pleased at having his entrance go unnoticed – and after four days away, too. They should have crowded around him at once with yelps of joy.

Instead, their minds were distinctly on other things. "Oh, 'ullo, Aizen-sama," they said. "Look, Nel's learned ter read 'er name!"

"I kin write mine!" clamored Rukia. "I'm best of all!"

"Eh?" said Aizen, justifiably confused.

"Orihime's teachin' us ter read 'n write," they informed him.

"Is she, now?" Aizen stood for a moment, studying Orihime and his excited Arrancar, not sure whether he liked this new development or not. On the one hand, it was to his advantage that they should be even a trifle literate. That sort of thing could be very useful. On the other hand, there were certain subtle changes going on – and not so subtle, too – which needed thinking about. It wouldn't do to let Orihime instigate too many things. Bad for discipline.

"Welladay," he said, with rather deflating tolerance. "Mind you don't let your new game interfere with pocket practice." And he raised an eyebrow at the neglected pouches over by the wall.

Orihime opened an indignant mouth to point out that learning to read was a great deal better than learning to steal, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. Then she closed it again without saying any of it. What right had she, unless she could provide some other way for them to live? She sighed, and Aizen regarded her with amused interest.

"Pocket practice at once," he commanded. "And after that, Orihime, I'm taking you back to Las Noches."

Gloom instantly fell upon Hueco Mundo. Who, then, would tell them stories and teach them to read? Rukia began to bawl, and the others looked at Aizen – for the first time – with something like reproach. He had always been a kind of super-being: half-father, half-god, the only one in the world besides Queen Bess whom they revered and loved. But now that he was taking away something they wanted, he became just a trifle of an ogre. Aizen sensed this.

"Fear not; I'll bring her back to you," he chuckled. "In the meantime, you can practice with one another, surely?"

They looked doubtful. Besides… "Who's going ter tell us stories?" demanded Grimmjow, aggrieved. He'd been dying to find out what Ichigo did after pulling Orihime out of the pond, and also what happened to those few brave Spartans standing off the whole Persian army at the place with the funny name.

Aizen raised an interested eyebrow and glanced at Loly and her friends. "I warrant Loly can tell you the most wondrous stories, can't you, Loly?" he suggested, half mocking.

Loly rose at once to the challenge. "Ar," she agreed, glaring at Orihime. "O' course I kin!"

XxXxXxX

"There you are, Oriana, dear. Did you have a nice session with Father Pepe? Take a comfit from the dish there, and sit down while you wait for Meninas; the lazy girl is late abed." And Mistress Catnipp smiled at Orihime with such warmth that she had to harden her heart all over again.

It was terrible to be a guest and a spy at the same time, even for a good cause! Orihime took a comfit without much enthusiasm, and managed a strained smile as she seated herself on a high-backed chair, reminding herself that however nice Mistress Catnipp and Meninas were to their friends (and prospective converts), they were also wicked traitors plotting to kill Queen Bess. Well, they were, weren't they? Quincy plotters always did plan to kill the Queen, surely? Besides, Meninas had all but said so.

Still, Orihime did wish she had more than Meninas' and Aizen's word for it. After all, Meninas was a flea-brain, and Aizen told the truth only when it suited him. She nibbled her comfit with such a depressed air that her hostess took alarm.

"Are you not feeling well, sweet Oriana? There's hardly any plague in London this summer," she added uneasily.

"I'm not ill," Orihime sighed, with a side glance at Aizen, who showed just the barest edge of unease beneath his habitual calm. Not for her health, she decided cynically, but in case she might say something that would give the counterplot away. He reminded her of the Spartan boy pretending there wasn't a fox under his cloak taking bites out of him, and she indulged in a small wry grin of satisfaction that for once Aizen should be doing the squirming. She prodded him a little.

"It's my thoughts that distract me," she confessed quite truthfully, causing Aizen to look as if the fox had begun to chew his liver. But Orihime had known intuitively what she was doing, and Candice leaped to the obvious conclusion.

"It's the process of conversion," she said. "It often happens so. The devil fights to keep his hold on your mind. Once you drive him out and accept the true teachings –" She gave Orihime the loving look of one who sees a sweet child about to be saved from hell-fire.

Orihime returned it with the scared look of one who feels herself being pushed into it. "Well, I'm not sure I will," she mumbled with sudden obstinacy, and contrived not to see the look of dire warning that Aizen shot at her.

But if Candice needed any final proof that Sir Aizen and his daughter were what they seemed to be, this religious doubt provided it. She smiled at Orihime with a renewed warmth as a yawning Meninas came in, wearing a full lemon overgown and saffron-dyed ruff under her purple hair.

"You girls run out into the garden, now, and enjoy the sunshine." She beamed at them. "Berenice will bring you some refreshments presently, and do be sure to keep your face masks up; it's a hot morning and you must not spoil your complexions."

They obeyed, resigned to each other's company, and making the best of it. "Is your hair naturally that color, then?" asked Meninas presently as they strolled among the neat geometrical flowerbeds edged with sky-blue clumps of lobelia.

Orihime put a hand up to the silken copper mane cascading down her back. "Of course," she said.

"It's a pity," sighed Meninas, sympathetic. "I should hate having hair the same color as the Bastard Queen."

For an instance Orihime was completely silenced. Meninas took an alarmed look at her scarlet cheeks and outraged eyebrow, mistook the reason, and hastened to say something pacifying. "Never mind, perhaps you can dye it or wear a wig when you're older. Most likely it won't matter by then, for by next year or perhaps the year after she will be dead and Queen Mary on the throne."

Orihime's scruples about spying vanished like morning mist, but much faster. She swallowed hard, unclenched her fists with an effort, and managed a smile that caused Meninas to back up a step or two and wish she hadn't said anything about red hair. Clearly Oriana was quite sensitive about it.

Orihime found her tongue and her wits. "Idiot!" she said scornfully. "That's what everybody is always saying, about Mary Stuart, I mean. People keep trying to get rid of Queen Bess, and their plots always get found out by Yamamoto and they end up fleeing the country or being caught and hanged. They seem a great lot of fools to me. I don't believe there is any new plot afoot at all. No one would dare after the last one."

"They would! We do!" cried Meninas, stung.

"Well, I think anyone would think twice before trying again, because Yamamoto is very clever at learning about things like that." Orihime spoke with urgent sincerity.

"The Great Yhwach isn't so easily discouraged! Ambassador Haschwaldt won't be embarrassed this time. If I wanted to, I could tell you things would make your eyes pop out, so there!"

Orihime permitted herself to look extremely skeptical.

"I could!" squeaked Meninas, goaded.

"Doubtless," Orihime agreed politely, and yawned.

"You don't believe me!"

"No," agreed Orihime. "Well, why should I? Even if there was a new plot afoot, which is easy enough to say, I can't imagine anyone telling you about it. You're only a little girl, for all your talk about young men languishing at your feet, and what's more, your tongue wags."

Meninas crimsoned with wounded pride. It made her look very pretty, but Orihime failed to admire her. "My whole family," said Meninas with huffy dignity, "knows about it. Especially my cousin Askin Nakk Le Vaar, who is one of the very chief people in it, and he's always visiting the Quincy Ambassador Haschwaldt secretly by night. And they smuggle notes back and forth to Queen Mary in the cleverest ways you can imagine, that Yamamoto would never guess. And His Holiness Yhwach approves, and the Sternritter are going to invade England at Rye next year – in September, I think – and the Quincy Army will invade through Ireland, and all the English Quincy will rise, and the Bastard Queen will be killed before that, so there won't be anyone for the shinigami to fight for even if they want to. And the Holy Yhwach says that whoever kills her won't be committing murder at all, but doing God's service. And then Queen Mary will take her rightful throne, and all England will return to the True Faith, and everything will be all right."

It was perfectly obvious that Meninas was quoting a great deal of this. She couldn't have invented it. Orihime was so frozen by this realization that she sat still on the marble bench for a moment in a state something like shock. Meninas, seeing that she had impressed her stubborn guest at last, looked triumphant.

"You must be making it up," Orihime said at last, but without conviction. "Nobody would tell you about a thing like that if it were really true; they just couldn't be so pigeon-brained!"

Meninas flushed again, hesitated, and then dashed the lingering doubt.

"They didn't actually tell me," she confessed reluctantly. "But my bedchamber is just over the room next to Father's private study where he talks secretly to Cousin Askin and people. And there is a funny spot in the wall, where if I put my ear, I can hear practically everything." Belatedly, she began to look worried. "I shouldn't have told you, Oriana! It's a most tremendous secret, and Father would flay me if he knew I even knew at all! Please don't tell him, will you? Not a word!"

"Of course I won't tell your father," said Orihime with perfect truth and not the slightest twinge from her conscience.

Meninas looked relieved. It never occurred to her that Orihime hadn't promised not to tell anyone else.


	8. Chapter 8

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 8**

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of my work. Every time I get a comment or fave on any of my stories, it makes me want to write more on all of them.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 2/9/15.)

XxXxXxX

"Are you sure?" asked Aizen, his eyes intent on Orihime. "You're not making it up, are you?"

"Well, of course not!" she snapped. "How could it help the Queen if I did that? Besides, I'm not clever enough to make up anything that complicated; and I'm cleverer than Meninas, so she couldn't have made it up, either."

Aizen looked faintly startled, as he occasionally did when she said something sensible. "My dear Orihime, you are becoming most shrewd." He fell into a thoughtful silence, appearing to forget about her.

Orihime bore it as long as she could, fidgeting. "Hadn't we better hurry and go tell Yamamoto and the Queen at once?" she demanded.

He propped his chin on his knuckles and eyed her sadly. "How you do rush into things, Orihime. No, no; not yet, my dear."

"Why not? We shouldn't wait; they might hurry it up or something. Besides," she added with a flash of the realism she was rapidly developing, "the sooner we tell them, the sooner you'll get the reward money, you know."

"My dear Orihime, you must not try to run this yourself."

She scowled, and Aizen regarded her with that disarming smile that had never yet failed to reduce her to submissive apology. "Don't you trust me?" he asked with deep reproach.

"No, I don't," she stated.

Once again, gratifyingly, he was looking surprised – and a trifle annoyed – and somewhat approving as well. "That's most wise of you, Orihime. I've told you before that you're entirely too credulous. But this really isn't the time to start being difficult with me, you know. We have" – he looked virtuous – "the Queen to serve."

"That's exactly what I've been saying." Orihime eyed the door through which supper might reasonably be expected to appear presently. They ate well at Las Noches, a fact which she very much appreciated. "You keep saying no hurry, but there is a hurry, because besides saving the Queen, I've got to get home. Any day now Ichigo is liable to notice that I haven't written or sent for the rest of my things or anything, and then goodness knows what he'll do."

"Presently, I tell you." He nodded at Momo, who came in to announce supper. "In the meantime, we continue your visits and your religious instruction. But first, as soon as we've supped, Gin will take you back to Hueco Mundo for a few days, until your next visit."

He looked at her, waiting for the explosion. It didn't come. She was quite pleased, she found to be returning to Hueco Mundo, despite the dirt and fleas and terrible food. It was much more interesting than either Las Noches or Candice Catnipp's house. She liked the business of teaching the Arrancar to read, and telling them stories. It was like feeding the starving, only better, because the mental food they gobbled so hungrily would stay with them always.

XxXxXxX

She was welcomed back! Her appearance was greeted by the younger ones almost as if she had been Aizen himself, with roars of approval, and a clamor for an immediate reading lesson, and a spate of news about how Persephone had actually caught a mouse – quite by accident, it seemed, and to the equal astonishment of captor and captive. Yammy beamed at her, and Nel wept, and Starrk grinned, and even Ulquiorra actually looked at her and nodded: a rare gesture of goodwill. Only Loly and her coterie seemed less than pleased.

Orihime produced a packet of fine white bread and cheese, saffron cake and gingerbread that she had shamelessly stolen from Aizen's kitchen (with the help of Momo and the cook), and then scrambled away, laughing, to avoid being trampled by the Arrancar.

"Orihime!" bawled Rukia, swallowing an enormous morsel of cheese whole lest anyone filch it from her. "Orihime, c'mere!" She rushed over to the wall, where, dimly visible in the evening sunlight filtering through the window, Orihime perceived the evidence of the Arrancars' industry. Every inch, up to the highest reach of Starrk and Yammy, was covered with scratched letters and words, and even, where Rukia proudly pointed, a whole sentence. Orihime squinted at it.

PRS EFNY CATTE COTTE MWS

CATT ETT BOEN

"Persephone Cat caught Mouse. Cat ate – er – bone," translated Orihime, half by intuition. "That's splendid! Did you do it all yourself, Rukia?"

"Ar," said Rukia, twisting her feet with pride. "Did I spell it correctly?"

Orihime looked over the letters carefully. "I think they're very good," she pronounced. "I suppose there isn't any right and wrong spelling so long as the letters come out to the right sound. Here, everyone, see how many ways you can spell – um – bread and cheese."

There was a rush for the wall. Presently, after much labor and muttering and heavy breathing, the phrase was immortalized by almost every possible combination. Including SSOOVIIVS from Yammy, who had now mastered the shapes (if not the sounds) of four whole letters.

"Me, I'm the cleverest of all," bragged Rukia with more truth than modesty. "I can talk like a fine lady, too," she added in a quite credible imitation of Orihime. "If I put on a fine dress everyone will think I'm a gentry mort."

"No they won't," Orihime told her crushingly.

Rukia instantly attacked her with both fists, roaring. "They will! Why won't they?"

Starrk plucked her off, and Nel boxed her ears. Orihime waited for the howls to die down a trifle. "For one thing, ladies don't act like that," she said severely. "And for another, anyone could look at you and tell you come from Slops Alley. Ladies – I mean gentry morts – do wash once in a while. All over, I mean. Not very often, perhaps," she amended fairly, "but sometimes. And I shouldn't think you would ever be brave enough to do that. Remember all the fuss you made over washing just your face? Now, Nel –" She looked at Nel and discovered something. There was a small, almost-clean patch in the middle of each cheek. "Nel, you've been washing!" cried Orihime, delighted.

Nel blushed, ducked her head, and simpered a little. "I thought I'd give it a try," she confessed. "It ain't so bad if yer 'olds yer breath."

Rukia, her glory snatched away from her, wrenched herself loose from Starrk's relaxed hold and fled roaring to Loly for comfort. Orihime ignored her. Nel and Rangiku were explaining that they were almost out of wall space, and how about taking up all the rushes and using the floor to write on? Orihime privately thought this was a most excellent idea, whether they wrote on the floor or not, and told them how clever they were to have thought of it. Sora would have been astonished at her developing sense of diplomacy.

"You're supposed to teach us to be like gentry," Rukia bellowed from Loly's side. "Me, especially. Aizen-sama said so. That's why 'e brung you 'ere, innit?"

Loly laughed nastily. "'Strewf! Well, partly. 'Er sat there on the road like a blubber'eaded flat, just beggin' ter be scrobbled – so 'e scrobbled 'er. Matter 'o principle."

Orihime instantly forgot her diplomacy. "Well, the idea!" she bristled, uncomfortably aware that there was a good deal of truth in the unsavory remark, but not for a moment ready to admit this to Loly. "As a matter of fact, I agreed to come help Aizen find out about a new plot against the Queen. You don't suppose I'd have just come along for no reason, do you? I mean, now that I've got to know you and got used to the food and all, I'm glad about that, too, but that's not why I came, not in the least. It was for Queen Bess."

She had touched the heart of their loyalty. Love of the Queen came before all else to most Londoners. Queen Elizabeth could have had their lives at her whim, walked across their willing backs to keep her feet dry. She was mother, father, child, and God rolled into one. She was their Gloriana, friend and protector, one of themselves. She ruled by the grace of the people rather than the grace of God, and she never forgot it. She defended their freedoms, she cared for them with all her heart, and she stood as a frail but unbreakable bulwark between them and the greedy ambition of France and Spain and the persecutions of the Quincy. And with all that, she was tolerant. Far too tolerant, surely. Live and let live seemed a mad and dangerous notion; dangerous to Queen Bess herself above all. Ministers and advisers, Parliament and people scolded and nagged her for her leniency – and loved her all the more.

The Arrancar were at once with Orihime. Even Loly thawed grudgingly. After all, since the Queen wouldn't protect herself, it was their duty to do it for her, and this took precedence over everything, even private quarrels.

"That Mary Stuart ort ter watch 'er step," Starrk pointed out darkly. "Anyfing 'appens to Queen Bess..." There was no need to finish. Everyone knew. Mary's fate at the hands of the enraged English would be sure and unpleasant.

"If I were Queen Mary," said Orihime thoughtfully, "I'd be working my head off to keep Queen Bess safe instead of the other way around. I think Mary must be as silly as she is wicked."

"Ar," agreed Loly with a sigh. It was a great concession, agreeing with Orihime about anything – but there it was. The Queen came first, and anyone serving Her Grace simply had to be tolerated, however objectionable.

XxXxXxX

Previous morning sounds in Hueco Mundo were nothing compared to the ones which awoke Orihime the next day. She rolled off her pallet and rushed down the stairs to the wardrobe floor below, neck and neck with Loly and Nel. The noise came, as before, from the washing room, used only by Orihime herself now and then, or (begrudgingly) when a particular role or Aizen demanded it of one of the others. And even Orihime found herself making the effort less often, now that she was no longer trying to maintain the greatest possible distance between herself and the Arrancar. It was a terrible chore carrying pails of water all the way from the conduit in Faiture Lane and up the rickety stairs.

But someone else had apparently been doing just that. Through a barrage of noise they could see that the water had been squandered in a shocking way, pools of it on the floor, a bucket overturned, and in the center of it all, a small drenched scrap of child surrounding an open mouth.

"Rukia!" Loly shouted above the din, smacking the scarlet cheek in order to get attention. "Wot d'you fink you're doin'?"

"Bein' a gentry mort!" yelled Rukia, squeezing out a whole stream of tears that blended at once with the other water on her. "Don't like it! It's cold and wet!"

Loly glared at Orihime ferociously. "You an' yer gentry talk!" She looked at the shivering child, lifted a strand of the soaked mat of hair, and shrugged despairingly. "Wot we goin' ter do wiv 'er now?"

Orihime snatched the nearest garment from the floor and wrapped it around Rukia. "I think we should give her a good washing in hot water, now she's already wet. Do you think Ulquiorra would let us use the other pot? Stop crying, Rukia; you won't have any more cold water. It'll be nice and warm, poppet; and you'll like it, I promise."

Loly, on the verge of boxing Orihime's ears, suddenly stopped and eyed her thoughtfully. A narrow shaft of sunlight had somehow penetrated through the narrow window from between the tall roofs around, touching the shining copper of Orihime's hair and the dull black of Rukia's. Underneath the hair, the two faces were remarkably similar. Pointed chins beneath large eyes, with the same kind of bone structure. Supposing Rukia were scrubbed clean...

Abruptly Loly changed her mind. "Ar," she nodded. "Finish up, now you've started. I'll stay 'ome 'n 'elp. Nel, you can go out with Menoly. Yammy can go fetch more water. C'mon, you," she added commandingly to Orihime, and led the way downstairs to cope with Ulquiorra about the matter of heating the water.

It was a spectacular morning. Rukia had completely changed her mind about the desirability of cleanliness, and fought like several tiger cubs whenever Loly brought the sodden cloth anywhere near her. Her skinny, naked little body flailed wildly. Then Orihime had an inspiration. With a sudden grab and heave, she lifted Rukia and deposited her bodily in the huge pot of warm water. A tidal wave arose to slosh over Orihime and Loly and engulf the interestedly watching Persephone, who fled screeching.

Rukia gave one deafening bellow, and then stopped. An expression of beatific joy spread over her face. She blinked, smiled, and settled into the soothing warmth around her until her sharp little chin was nearly submerged. "Coo!" she crooned. "This is naffy, Loly; I likes it!"

Orihime and Loly looked at each other. Almost, for an instant, there was laughter and rapport between them. Then they turned to the new problem: not how to get Rukia near the water, but how to get parts of her out of it long enough to scrub. And the matter of the hair was a major battle that required reinforcement in the shape of a sour and disapproving Ulquiorra.

When they had finished, nearly everyone was as wet as Rukia, and the floor had become a kind of marsh, with scummy pools spreading among the rushes. Persephone sat onshore complaining about the flooding of her hunting grounds. Rukia sat blinking sleepily while Orihime dried the clean pink flesh and tangles of soft dark hair.

"Aren't you pretty!" cried Orihime. "I knew you would be!"

Rukia looked smug, and Loly astonishingly maternal. The girls bustled upstairs and dressed Rukia in clothing suited to her new state of cleanliness, while Yammy labored below to dump the rest of the water into the street.

"Now we just start untangling her hair," decided Orihime, producing a battered comb Grimmjow had stolen for her. "I can hardly wait to see it all combed and tidy. It'll be lovely, all silky and rich and curly."

"'Strewf!" agreed Loly with an enthusiasm that was almost instantly dimmed. In a few moments the air was thick with shrieks and curses and Ulquiorra had to be called in again; Persephone had fled once more, and the would-be combers were looking at each other with despair. It was doubtful if Rukia's hair had ever been combed in her life, and it was even more doubtful that it ever could be.

"Forget it," advised Ulquiorra with practical cynicism. But the dark head and the copper one shook in unison. In a way, Rukia's hair looked almost worse clean and matted than it had dirty and matted. Something would have to be done.

Loly stuck the comb with difficulty through the least dense bit of the rat's nest, achieving nothing at all but a new medley of yowls.

"'Ave ter cut it," she decided sadly.

Rukia stopped her imitation of a major battle and looked interested. "Ar," she agreed with enthusiasm. "An' tell Aizen-sama an 'air-nipper got me."

Orihime and Loly looked at each other.

"He deceives us whenever he feels like it," mused Orihime as if to herself.

"Females is more'n a match for men any day," Loly reflected with conviction. "Even Aizen-sama," she added with far less conviction. Clearly she was wavering. Orihime applied encouragement.

"We could say Rukia ran and found you after it was cut off, and we washed it and bathed her to make her feel better," she urged.

Loly looked tempted. "Menoly and Nel will keep mum... and Ulquiorra?" Ulquiorra looked noncommittal, meaning he was washing his hands of the whole affair. Loly nodded and then frowned as she thought of something. "Wot about Yammy? 'E knows, and 'e's a blubber'eaded tongue flapper."

"Cap downright as Aizen-sama'll cock up Orihime's shambles if any cove squeaks beef on 'er," Rukia suggested shrewdly.

To Loly's evident surprise, Orihime gurgled irrepressibly. "You've got a noddle on your squeeze, Rukia," she retorted in kind. "But if you go around looking like a gentry mort, you really ought to see if you can say that in gentry talk."

Rukia didn't turn a hair. "Vow to Yammy that Aizen-sama will kill Orihime if anyone tells on her," she said in perfectly respectable accents, and then lapsed at once into broad Cockney. "'Ow's that? Din' fink I could do it, did yer? Naffy, innit?"

Both girls giggled, and Loly went to fetch a knife. When the operation was over, Rukia wore a short cap of glossy dark hair. They surveyed her with tremendous satisfaction.

"No one would think 'er could be a nipper," decided Loly gleefully. "Not even if 'er got caught..." She broke off reflectively, thought it over for a moment, and then bawled for Yammy. "Bring some more water," she commanded briskly. "I'm gorn to 'ave a baff, meself."


	9. Chapter 9

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 9**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 2/13/15.)

XxXxXxX

They went out nipping and foisting that afternoon, resplendent and shining after their baths. Orihime accompanied them, wearing an aura of disapproval which the others treated with the tolerant contempt it deserved.

Still, her conscience, though very much confused of late, compelled her to make a feeble protest. "Ladies – I mean, gentry morts – never cut purses or pick pockets," she told Rukia.

"'Er don't want to be a real lady, blubber'ead," explained Loly impatiently. "Just ter look like one, see?" But Rukia looked thoughtful. Perhaps, hoped Orihime, she had begun to get into the spirit of this new role of gentry mort?

Reading and pocket practice were both nearly eclipsed that evening by what threatened to be a plague of baths. The practical uses of cleanliness had suddenly been discovered, not to mention the pleasures, which Rukia was shouting about at the top of her voice. Her glossy black head flitted about the squalid room amid the old rushlights, the focus of every eye.

But then Ulquiorra quenched the bath fever by ruling sourly and with a minimum of words that every bath-taker had to bring in the water, heat it over fuel they had stolen themselves, and then empty the water and clean up the mess. "You" – he glared at Loly, Orihime, and Rukia – "can do yours now, 'ear?"

Loly was furious. Orihime scowled, too, and then cheered up suddenly.

"Never mind, we were going to get rid of these moldy old rushes, anyway, and use the floor for writing on." Gingerly she picked up a small handful of rushes near the corner where it looked slightly less dirty than the rest, and marched down the corridor towards the door. There was a whoop and a rush as all the Arrancar enthusiastically joined in the project.

Persephone, after a few moments of loud dismay, suddenly threw herself into the spirit of the thing, for buried treasure began to emerge in all directions. Mad with excitement, she raced in turn after treasure that scurried away and treasure that lay where it was, taking both to her private collection at the far end of the corridor. The former was more tempting, but it showed an annoying tendency not to stay in the collection. Every now and then Persephone, trotting around the corner with a new item, would meet an old item running out again, and take after it with an indignant yowl. Orihime, laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes, forgot everything else in the antics of Persephone.

Presently it occurred to her that she had never seen Persephone's collection. Taking a rushlight, she followed the kitten down the corridor, past the staircase, and around the switchback at the far end, in the very back of the house, where long poles and boards leaned in a careless pile against the wall. There, just behind the boards, was the hoard. Orihime examined it while Persephone hovered jealously. There were assorted bones, odd rags of clothing, some quite recent skeletons of mice, a dead spider or two, several old purses with cut strings (discarded once they were empty), and – Orihime laughed aloud. Two purses not yet emptied, a hawkbell from the practice pocket, and a gleaming necklace – all prigged from the priggers!

"I won't tell," she assured the worried kitten.

Persephone jumped suddenly into the lap of the squatting Orihime. She at once fell over sideways, nearly dropping the rushlight. "Wicked thing!" she scolded, giggling again, and then stopped, to stare instead with a puzzled frown at the wall she had just fallen against.

There, in the corner under the tops of the leaning polls, was a distinct crack in the wall. Only not an old wall crack, but a straight, purposeful strip, half an inch wide, like the edge of a door. In fact, it _was_ the edge of a door. Orihime proved this very simply by pushing at it. It obligingly opened further, with a silent ease suggesting that it was used rather frequently.

Used by Aizen! Orihime had no doubt of this. It explained why his comings and goings were so seldom announced by the grating and bang of the front door, or even a flash of sulfurous fire. He came through here, and just went on down the corridor to the front door and into the common room from there. And he went back the same way. Back to – A flash of inspiration struck her. Back to Las Noches, of course! It must be quite close, then, and they really had been going in circles every time they took Orihime there or back, for the express purpose of deceiving her! She hadn't been imagining things at all. And she wasn't as stupid as everyone seemed to think, either, for she had now found out the secret that not even the Arrancar knew. Orihime was intuitively sure of that.

Her taste for adventure rushed back, undimmed. What fun! She must follow the passage at once, and see where it came out, and if Aizen was at the end, she'd jump out and say boo, and then inform him loftily that he needn't go to all that trouble trying to deceive her any longer. For the short remainder of her stay in London, she could simply eat and sleep at Las Noches, and then just slip through to Hueco Mundo for lessons and company and such things.

Persephone, clearly a kitten of Orihime's own mettle, sniffed excitedly at the open gap.

"Oh, very well, if you insist," agreed Orihime happily, and the two of them were just stepping through to adventure when Rukia's bellow cut raucously through the maze of passages.

"Orihime! C'mere! Shake your shambles! Us 'as put all the rushes out in the street, and now us wants ter learn more readin' and 'ear some more about Ichigo and your family, and that 'Ermes cove, and the mort wot 'ad snakes on 'er noddle for 'air."

Rukia clearly relished this last bit, and just as clearly would not stop until she found Orihime. Orihime considered going on with her exploration and closing the secret door behind her, but then with a prudence most unusual for her, gave up until a better moment should present itself. Tomorrow. She closed the door carefully.

"Coming," she called.

XxXxXxX

Once again Orihime awakened to the familiar roars of Rukia – with a difference. This time she wanted a bath. At once.

The rows of pallets along the floor heaved and grumbled in the thick sultry heat that already oppressed the city in the early dawn. Loly lifted her dark head and snarled at the howling child. Nel bleated anxiously that washing was unhealthy. And Rukia, ignoring them all, went on bellowing.

Orihime raised herself to an elbow and shouted above the din. "On hot sticky days like this, cold water feels best."

Rukia paused and eyed Orihime doubtfully. "But I likes sittin' in the nice 'ot water," she explained. "Feels good. Wants ter do it every day."

Trust Rukia to go to extremes! "Well, nobody does it that often," Orihime declared firmly. "Not even the Queen."

Rukia subsided for the moment, baffled. Orihime lay back on her palate and remembered that secret door. Today…

"Yer comin' out terday?" asked Rangiku with a cheerful grin.

Orihime shook her head and tried to look wan. "Too hot," she murmured. "I always feel faint in the heat."

And then for the rest of the day she had to endure the constant attention of the too-devoted Nel.

XxXxXxX

Ichigo paused in the middle of Chepeside, and felt that he was being smothered in heat and despair. It was almost oppressive. A murky look about the western sky hinted at a storm to come, and Ichigo fervently wished it would hurry and clear the air. His eyes, probably permanently narrowed by now with so much searching, roamed the crowds. His purse was tucked well into the breast of his doublet and his hand rested near it at all times. He had been learning a great deal lately about the habits and habitat of the London underworld. He found it all extremely interesting.

Just under his nose a red-haired urchin with a snub nose slipped a skilled hand towards a fat purse on a fat merchant. Ichigo, who was in a foul humor anyway, felt no particular urge to meddle. The merchant was overdressed and overfed and pompous, and Ichigo had begun to resent the shocking contrast between rich and poor. He turned a blind eye to the urchin and frowned. He had begun to suspect that Lord Ishida's letter to Orihime's brother had never been written, much less sent. No one believed that Orihime was in London: everyone either tried to humor Ichigo's evident madness, or snickered at it. Only this morning Uryuu had said frankly that he was sick of hanging about London looking for some silly wench who wasn't even there, and that he was going to go play tennis instead. Ichigo had retorted with some spirit, and the two parted rather cross with each other.

And Ichigo, for his part, was feeling crosser every moment. He ran a finger under his ruff, which was prickly and hot on this muggy day, and a perfectly ridiculous garment anyway, now he came to think about it. Whoever invented – His eye fell once again on that red-haired urchin, who was now sidling up to a woman who did not look as if she could afford to lose her purse.

Memory clicked. This was that same young cutpurse who had seemed to know Orihime on that unfortunate day when he had found and lost her! Quick as thought itself, Ichigo's hand reached out and grabbed the bony young arm before its owner could vanish.

The child jerked, failed to get away, whirled to face him.

"I never done it!" he cried automatically. "Lemme go! I ain't got nuffin' of yours!" he added in genuine outrage. "I never touched you; I never!"

"I know it," Ichigo chuckled, hanging on firmly. "Fear me not, young rascal; I only want a few words with you."

"What's to do?" It was the fat merchant, looking as thunderous as the weather. "Have you had your purse stolen, too, boy? Have you caught the thief? Search him!"

The boy's round eyes rolled at Ichigo in terror, and Ichigo could see the bulge under his rags that was almost certainly the merchant's purse. It would surely hang the child if found. Ichigo immediately edged his own body between the bulge and the merchant, but he kept a firm grip on that frightened arm.

"Search them!" insisted the merchant peremptorily. He struck Ichigo as being an offensively overbearing man. "Here, I'll do it."

Ichigo held strong natural objections to being ordered around. Moreover, he felt something for the terrified urchin. So he took unfair advantage of social distinctions.

"Not at all, my good man," he said in the bored but kindly tones of aristocracy (or at least gentry). "My purse is quite safe, and I merely wish to talk to the child for a personal reason; nothing to do with you."

He nodded haughtily, and the merchant, at once deflated, made off, muttering. Ichigo turned to his captive, who had stopped struggling and was staring up at him with disbelief.

"Now would you believe I mean you no harm?" asked Ichigo.

The boy hesitated, his eyes shrewd. Then he half-nodded, indicating a readiness to be further convinced. "I never took nuffin'," he asserted.

"Fustian!" laughed Ichigo, low-voiced. He poked the bulge. "That isn't belly, my lad. Now, come along while I'm in such a generous mood; I want a few words with you." The boy was looking apprehensive again, reminding Ichigo of a very young donkey about to balk. He hastily applied a carrot. "If you can't tell me a few things I want to know, I'll give you a silver halfpenny, and you won't even have to steal it."

This was a different story. A silver halfpenny was not to be sneezed at. The urchin came without more ado, those wary brown eyes beginning to look upon Ichigo with a cautious approval that Ichigo at once encouraged by stopping and buying a sweetmeat from a woman in a stall.

"Now," he said presently, the grip on the arm no longer being necessary. "I'm looking for a girl. She's fourteen, and she has hair just the color of those copper preserving pans." He pointed to another stall just ahead, gleaming with polished copper, and then peered down hopefully at his young companion, who didn't bat an eye.

"That'll be Orihime," he said with assurance. "'Er's told us about you. You're Ichigo, wot saved 'er from the pond. 'Er says as 'ow you doesn't like adventures, but us finks yer really does, and you're just like 'Ermes and them Spartan coves. Now wot about me silver 'a'penny?"

Ichigo recovered breath and equilibrium with some difficulty. It was true he had picked this urchin because of seeing him grin in a most familiar manner at Orihime, but this seemed too good to be possible. Yet it was too accurate not to be true.

"Wot about me rhino?" the boy demanded.

Ichigo handed over the coin, resisting a strong temptation to hug the grimy child. "There's more if you can tell me more," he said hastily, lest he lose his gold mine.

There was no need to worry. It would have taken a great deal to pry Renji loose, now.


	10. Chapter 10

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 10**

**A/N: **As promised, another chapter!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 2/21/15.)

XxXxXxX

It was evening, and the Arrancar were beginning to trickle back, wilted in the oppressive heat, before Orihime could shake her solicitous nurse and slip away through the maze to that mysterious door at the end of the corridor. Persephone appeared almost at once, rubbing against her ankles and mewing excitedly.

"Oh, very well, but don't tell," agreed Orihime, pleased to have company in this exciting new adventure. Ichigo would have been better, of course, but she reminded herself firmly that Ichigo would probably have muttered darkly about doing such reckless things as this, and then wanted to lead the way.

The door was closed this time, and would not push open. Orihime scowled at it, reflected for a moment, and began to feel around the rough wall. There had to be a catch, that was all. It gave suddenly. She pushed the door half open, peering into the solid black oblong and refusing to think that, after all, it might have been nice to have Ichigo go first. She put a foot in and groped. Stone stairs, going down steeply. Persephone, doubtless fired by the thoughts of more buried treasure, pressed softly past her ankles and vanished downward into the dark. Encouraged, Orihime took another step, and then another. Pleased with her own foresight, she remembered to find the catch on the inside. Then she closed the door and instantly was in thick darkness that crowded her eyes and was too much even for Persephone, who came pressing back.

"You wanted to come," said Orihime between her teeth. If she let the kitten out now, she might never get any further, herself. And that was silly, because Aizen used it all the time, didn't he? She was certain of that. Encouraged, she felt her way down the dozen steps and then forward along a long, narrow passageway that must be completely underground.

It seemed to go on and on in the pitch dark, but probably it was no more than sixty feet before it turned abruptly to the right and then presently into another flight of steps, this time going up. Orihime discovered this by the simple method of banging her bare toe on the bottom step. For an instant she had to sit clasping it and rocking back and forth with the pain while Persephone stuck an inquiring head under her arm.

In the silence there came the faintest throb of sound from above. Voices. Unastonished, Orihime unclasped her toe and began climbing with infinite care up the stairs, grinning to herself as she pictured Aizen's face when she should suddenly appear from his secret passage. She had no doubt at all that this was Las Noches, that it was Aizen up there, probably in his study, talking to a guest. Or that the passage would end presently in a door to that same study.

The voices became louder, until they were just on the other side of the wall that rose before her. Orihime, in the very act of raising her hand to find the catch that must release the door from this side, paused. Her grin faded to a thoughtful look. What if Aizen failed to appreciate the joke? The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that this was likely. For one thing, he might not care to have his guest know about his secret. Perhaps, after all, it might be best to wait a minute or two, if only to see who was with him, and what his mood might be.

She was at once glad she had waited, for the other voice rose suddenly with a kind of plaintive outrage. It was the tone Orihime's own voice had held when she first realized Aizen wasn't an honorable gentleman, after all. She drew a deep breath and listened shamelessly.

"But – but that's – By Saint Patrick, you're not threatening to betray us! Are you?"

Aizen's voice was all wounded virtue. "Of course not, Askin; how could you think such a thing? I'm but being honest and telling you that I am much torn. My new religion wars with my old loyalties, and my conscience needs encouragement of a kind to help convince it of its new values."

The other voice wavered. Orihime recognized it now: it was that of young Askin Nakk Le Vaar, the one who was deepest and most enthusiastically in The Enterprise. She had met him only once and hadn't thought much of him, for he seemed both weak and silly, but now she felt rather sorry for him, for he was being reduced to a state of doubtful apology that was all too familiar. And she could easily sense the panic that must be in his heart as he answered.

"We – we thought you were fully converted! You said you had no doubts! We were sure of you, or we'd never have told you about The Enterprise."

"But you didn't tell me, did you?" Aizen was at his most benignly and infuriatingly amused. "I told you, didn't I?"

He was toying with the man, and his victim knew it. "How did you find out?" he demanded sullenly.

Aizen laughed. "Genius. Or magic. Or a traitor among you. The point is, I do know, and I'm willing – nay, anxious – to help you. If you just settle my last lingering doubts. Complete my conversion, as it were. With something concrete and convincing." He paused, seemed to think it over. "Gold would do, I warrant." His voice became mellow and reverent. "Aye, gold is a most wondrous fine persuader, don't you think? There's something so solid and reassuring about it."

"I'm damned if –"

"My dear Askin, we are all of us damned if Yamamoto finds out. Especially you. Chief agent for Mary, aren't you? Pay regular visits to the Quincy Embassy by night, don't you? Oh, just to send harmless greetings to your uncle in France, of course. And are the Sternritter your uncles, as well?"

There was heavy breathing from the young man. Orihime could imagine his rather pale face going paler still, and had to remind herself that he was a traitor and didn't deserve her pity. Was Aizen guessing that Nakk Le Vaar was Queen Mary's chief agent, or did he know? Meninas had hinted as much, and it must be true, for he had denied it, but only made those muffled breathing sounds, like someone in pain. Or fear.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I told you. My poor troubled conscience –"

"A pox on your poor troubled conscience!" muttered Nakk Le Vaar, rallying slightly. "Pardieu, Sir Aizen, you argue circles around me, but I'm not such a fool as that! We're in this for the True Faith; you care only for profit, and all you want is to be bribed not to betray us to Yamamoto."

"You do put things so baldly," murmured Aizen, clearly unashamed.

"You've no honor or scruples at all!" wailed Nakk Le Vaar. "How could we trust you not to turn around and betray us the minute you had your gold?"

"Askin!" Aizen spoke in the hurt tones that used to reduce Orihime to abject apology. "You wound me! Moreover, you wrong me. Do you suppose I'm not sensible to that aspect? Do you think I'd ask you to trust me without a guarantee of my good faith?"

"Oh?" Askin sounded almost as mystified as the silently eavesdropping Orihime felt. Up to now she had seen what Aizen was up to, and was shocked but not greatly astonished. It was just like him to blackmail the Quincy plotters and then turn around and sell the information to Yamamoto after all. As far as Orihime was concerned, this made him far more wicked than the Quincies, who were risking their lives for something they believed in, however vile and base it really was. But what was this about a guarantee? It must be another clever trick – mustn't it?

Clearly Askin wondered the same thing. "What guarantee?" he asked, sullen and suspicious.

"Don't worry." Aizen laughed. "One that will convince even you. I've thought it all out, together with another guarantee that will protect me from any – er – unfortunate accidents."

He sounded terribly sincere. A horrible thought struck Orihime. What if he had decided that, after all, there was more profit in milking the plotters then in Yamamoto's reward for information? It seemed all too likely. It would explain why he kept delaying, and why –

"What guarantees?" Nakk Le Vaar was asking again.

"Why, I'll tell you," began Aizen, but he didn't. For Persephone, indignant at being ignored for so long, or perhaps thinking there might be food beyond that wall, suddenly gave voice.

"Wooh!" she yelled.

From the study came instant and ominous silence. Orihime didn't wait to find out whether Aizen would investigate the secret door in front of Nakk Le Vaar. She felt her way back down the stairs with all the silent speed she could manage, her heart crowding unpleasantly in her chest, and her shoulder blades prickling. Back along the dark passage, groping blindly, until she stubbed her toe again on the other stairs. This time she hardly noticed, but just scrambled up, fumbled the catch, nearly panicked, got the door open, slipped through, closed it behind her, and stood with her back against it for an instant, panting and trying to think.

"Wooh!" complained Persephone from inside.

Orihime turned and started to open the door again, and then stopped. If Aizen found the kitten in there, he'd assume he'd shut her in himself on his last trip. But if he didn't find her in there...

Orihime took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she murmured through the door to the wailing kitten. Then she scurried through the maze to the passage leading to the common room, her mind in a whirl. Aizen was going to betray the Queen, she was sure of it. What should she do?

"Orihime!" It was the faithful Nel, self-reproachful at having lost sight of her charge, and alarmed at the apparent result. "Coo, yer looks weevily! 'Tis the 'eat; yer better lob yer groats 'n then –"

"Stubble it," ordered Orihime almost absent-mindedly, as Loly arrived with Starrk. Loly demanded to know what she was in a tweak about.

Orihime didn't hesitate. "The Queen," she blurted. "She's in terrible danger. I must go see Yamamoto myself."

This was greeted with uneasy silence. Was Orihime mad? And just when they had got to like her, too! Starrk shook his head regretfully and said as much. Rangiku sighed, Yammy looked blank, Nel sniffled, and Rukia prepared to howl.

Loly demanded, "Wot d'yer mean?"

Orihime sucked in her breath and decided to be blunt. "Aizen's tipped the double," she announced. "He's going to play along with the Quincies' latest plot. It's a huge one they call The Enterprise."

Derisive hoots greeted this. The Arrancar stood massed against her, and Orihime felt very small and uncertain, and as alien as she had on her first day here. Then Nel silently moved to stand at her shoulder, and Rukia took up a ferocious posture on her other side, and Orihime found new courage.

"Gammon!" said Loly with scorn. "Aizen-sama wouldn't. Wot makes yer fink 'e would?"

"Heard him say so," returned Orihime succinctly.

"When?" demanded Starrk, his eyes speculative.

"Just now."

They looked at her. She hadn't been out that door all day. Nel, who knew this better than anyone except perhaps Yammy, looked as if she had been slapped. The Arrancar shook their heads. Mad, for sure.

Orihime set her lips defiantly. "I'll show you!" she snapped. And she led the way, with stiff, angry steps, through the maze to that switchback end and the apparently blank wall. The nearest half-dozen peered over one another's shoulders into the gloom, saw nothing whatever, and regarded Orihime with increasing doubt.

"Wooh!" said the blank wall plaintively. Orihime hesitated, remembering why she had intended to leave Persephone inside. Then she shrugged, stepped forward, and opened the hidden door.

Persephone shot out, furious. Someone had locked her up in the dark, all alone, and now, it seemed, they were going to steal her collection. Leaping to guard it, she turned upon the Arrancar a prolonged hiss that startled even her, and quite unnerved them all. They were in a mood to be unnerved easily. There loomed that black empty hole in their own house, infinitely menacing. Anything might come out of it. They backed up, and turned daunted eyes to Orihime for an explanation.

She gave it, briefly and in a low voice, every bit as scared of that door as they were, and with better reason. When she had finished, none of them felt the least bit better. It was clear even to Yammy that the something which was most likely to emerge from the door was Aizen. They didn't think he would be pleased to find them there.

"Close it," said Starrk with a small shudder.

Orihime obeyed, not having the heart even to suggest putting the kitten back inside. Then they scurried back to the common room, feeling chilled despite the sultry heat of the city, and clustered around Orihime, waiting.

"It's how Aizen comes and goes without making the front door squeak," she said softly. "It was open a crack when I went to see Persephone's collection, so of course I had to go see where it went."

They stared at her, awed. Clearly they had underestimated the courage of their Orihime, gentry mort though she was. Then, breathing a little easier out of sight of that door, they went back to the issue at hand. They still thought she was wrong. The Arrancar had two deities, the Queen and Aizen, and that one should betray the other was literally unthinkable. They refused point-blank to think it.

"Garn," Starrk said in tones of finality. "'E'll take the Quincies' rhino and then tell Yamamoto, blubber-noddle."

"Well, do you suppose I didn't think of that?" retorted Orihime. "Even Nakk Le Vaar did. And Aizen said he had an absolutely positive guarantee for him, and –"

"Ar," said Rangiku. "'E would. 'E's clever, Aizen is. Don't get your tail in a tweak, Orihime; 'e wouldn't do nuffin' ter 'urt Queen Bess."

"He would if it paid him enough," Orihime retorted with the bitterness of disillusion. Never again would she believe quite so easily in appearances, in plausible charm. Aizen, she decided, must be a great deal like Mary of Scotland. Both had that rare ability to win hearts with frightening ease – and neither, apparently, had any scruples whatsoever. Aizen, in addition, was clever, very clever indeed (which Mary apparently was not). Orihime shivered. "He'd do anything if it paid him enough. He's good to you all because it profits him, but if it would profit him more to have your throat slit, well, he'd do it himself and smile whilst he did it. And you know he would."

They looked uncomfortable. No one denied it. Perhaps they accepted it as being perfectly reasonable, or at least one of the facts of life, like cold and hunger and plague. In any case, they felt, Orihime was confusing two separate things.

"Ar, but 'e wouldn't do nuffin' to 'arm the _Queen_," Starrk repeated.

"That's right, my goslings." They whirled. Aizen stood in the doorway, cocking an eyebrow at them all, looking amused and reproachful and benign. "Come, has my Orihime been telling sad tales about my wickedness?" It was perfectly clear even to the most jaundiced eye that here was a man to be trusted to the death. Even Orihime's extremely jaundiced eye wavered for an instant. Then she remembered her new and hard-won cynicism.

"Yes, I have," she said defiantly.

Aizen strolled in, tousled her hair, cast an intrigued glance at the bare, rushless floor, and perched himself on the edge of the table. "What sort of sad tales?" he asked interestedly.

The Arrancar answered all at once, in a confused and indignant medley in which there was no word at all of secret doors or passageways. They all knew instinctively that this was better unmentioned.

"Stow your gab," he told them good-naturedly after a moment. "Orihime, how did you come by such a silly idea?"

"Well, I heard you with my own ears," she blurted. "You told that Askin Nakk –" She stopped, with the sickening sensation of having just tramped on thin ice and feeling it break beneath her. Aizen, who must have suspected where she had been, now most certainly knew. What a fool she was! She must keep him from finding out that she had told the Arrancar about that door...

Panicky, she flicked a quick glance at Loly and Starrk, whose eyes mirrored her own thoughts. Loly spoke into the blank silence.

"We let 'er trick us," she confessed to Aizen in an aggrieved voice. "'Er must 'ave snuck out while we was throwing out the rushes. When 'er came back, she said as 'ow she'd been to your 'ouse 'n 'eard you talking with the Quincy plotters." Her eyes were rueful, puzzled, candid. It was an altogether remarkable performance. And Aizen, still not suspecting the extent of Orihime's subversive influence, swallowed it. He glanced with brief question at Ulquiorra, but he merely went on stirring the pot.

And he smiled.

"What a havey-cavey Orihime it is," he said mildly. "Welladay, as you're so set on coming back to Las Noches, perhaps you'd best come along now. As a matter of fact," he added lightly, "haply I shan't need your help any more, and can send you along home."

Once this would have brought a delighted smile to Orihime's face, and the Arrancars' as well. Now a cold chill seemed to sweep the stifling room. Not for a moment did Orihime believed he'd let her go now. She remembered what he had said on that first day, about finding her corpse in the Thames. Her bones felt as if they were all running together. And there was nothing at all that she could do – or say. She looked despairingly at Aizen's genial face, and then at the Arrancar, who wore the wooden expressions of people determinedly not knowing something they knew very well.

"'Strewf," mumbled Rangiku. "'S a naffy fing for 'er ter go 'ome, innit?"

Some of the youngest ones, not understanding, began to sniffle. Who, they demanded, was going to teach them reading and tell them stories about Ichigo and Hermes? They were quelled instantly by a fierce look from Loly.

"Close yer chaffers," she said in a hard voice. "Good riddance." She glared at Orihime, who was too numb with fear to notice or care. Nel, belatedly grasping the situation, suddenly turned pasty pale and clung dumbly to Orihime's arm.

But mute acceptance was not for Rukia. She set up a shrill screaming that made all her previous efforts seem negligible, and attacked Aizen with fists, feet, and teeth.

"Lackaday," said Aizen mildly, and knocked her halfway across the room. "Naughty temper, gosling. Come along, Orihime; we've a lot to do if we're to visit Yamamoto tomorrow."

This remark didn't cause the immediate relief that Aizen might have expected. The gray silence continued. For the first time Aizen seemed slightly disconcerted, and his joviality somewhat forced. "Come, come, my dears; you don't really suppose I'd let anything happen to Her Grace, do you? Come, Orihime."

And with a hand like iron around her unresisting wrist, he led her out.

There was total silence in the common room. Every ear followed the footsteps down the corridor to the front door. It groaned open and shut. No one moved. The Arrancar were better trained in guile than Aizen knew. After a moment there came soft footsteps, a faint creak, a whisper of skirts against a wall, a tiny sound of wood on wood, and then more silence. Still no one moved. Then Persephone stalked in to announce indignantly that her collection had been invaded again, and they all breathed.

But not yet easily. Not until Starrk had sent some of the smaller children to chase one another on a game of tag through the maze, and they had come back to report it was quite empty.

Then Rukia picked herself up from the floor, bruised but not greatly damaged, and fled with a heartbroken yowl to Nel's bosom. They wept together while the others stared with morose eyes at them and at the barren floor, still innocent of rushes and writing alike, and looking somehow reproachful.

"Never finish learnin' ter read now Orihime's scrobbled," mourned Rangiku.

"Gonner kill meself!" sobbed Nel, surveying the Orihime-less void of the future.

"I'd liefer kill Aizen," announced Rukia blasphemously, beginning to recover her natural truculence. The others stared, shaken at such sacrilege. "Kill Aizen!" she repeated. "Save Orihime and Queen Bess!" Her voice rose to a roar.

"Stubble it!" ordered Starrk so harshly that Rukia stopped at once. "And stop napping your bib, Nel." He had stood unmoving all this time, staring at the doorway expressionlessly. Now he looked around at them. "Orihime twigged true," he said flatly. "'E might leave the Queen in the nitch... if 'e can keep the Quincies paying 'im enough."

There was no scoffing this time. If Starrk said it, they must take it seriously. They did so, dirty faces screwed up with concentration.

He was right! They looked at him and at one another, shaken. Was their first duty, then, to Aizen or the Queen? Their faces went blank with the pain of conflicting loyalties.

But only for a moment. To a Londoner one had to come before all others. They sighed, and Starrk took command again. He looked around at them all and faced facts, unflinching.

"No use bleating," he said. "We'll just 'ave to blab."

They breathed deeply and waited for him to go on. To whom must they blab, and how?

"We'll go tell the Queen," Starrk decided with the simplicity of genius. If the Queen was in danger, clearly the Queen must be warned.

"Gammon!" snorted Loly, her eyes narrowed. "They'd never let the likes of us near 'er. Any'ow, she's on Progress. Cambridge, I fink, or Lincoln, or summat like that; 'n 'ow'd we get there?"

Starrk was daunted, but only for an instant. "Then we'll go tell Yamamoto, like Aizen was going ter do." He nodded his head, and glared around, looking for any further signs of opposition. But there were none. Even Ulquiorra sat still, seeming neither to approve nor disapprove. Loly nodded hesitantly. Starrk took another deep breath.

"We'll go now," he decided bravely.

There was a screech from Rukia and a hoarse bleat from Nel. "Wot abaht Orihime?"

The Arrancar looked at them. Orihime? It was the Queen who mattered. Orihime was nothing if Her Grace was in danger: Orihime herself would be the first to say so. Besides, they pointed out sorrowfully, it was now too late to help Orihime. Aizen had scrobbled her. No one could help... except, possibly, amended Rangiku, the Queen herself. In any case, the sooner they set off, the better.

Crowded together, as if for mutual protection, the Arrancar headed determinedly out of Slops Alley toward Candlewick Street, and Ludgate, and the Strand, and Whitehall, where, presumably, Yamamoto might be found.

But not all of the Arrancar left. Some, like Renji, had not yet returned from work. Others were too young, or too hungry, or had arrived too recently to know what was happening. And Rukia and Nel, with one glance of perfect agreement, had already slipped quietly into the narrow corridor leading to Persephone's collection.

Pale with their own temerity, they regarded the blank wall in the near-dark. It was Rukia's clever mind and fingers which found the catch, and Nel who pushed the door open to peer doubtfully into the black tunnel beyond. Trembling, they stepped in. Clutching each other, they groped as Orihime had done down the narrow darkness until they stumbled on the far steps, and mounted to the blank wall at the top.

Once again Rukia found the catch, but it was Nel's long, scared face that ventured first through the opening, to peer around the shadowed study. It was empty. The silence pressed around them. Rukia entered the study in a small silent rush and ended at the door in the far wall, staring at the latch as if it might peck her. Then they both turned to look at the black oblong gaping behind them in the murky light from the window. For although the sun would not set for a couple of hours, it was on the other side of the house, and little enough light at best came down the narrow canyons between jutting upper stories. But even in the dimness that opening was far too obvious. Together, the girls closed it; and then, breathing hard, they returned to the door leading from the study.

They listened intently, and then opened the door a tiny crack. Small sounds came from the front of the house, presumably from Gin or Tousen doing some duty or other as footman or servant; and from the top of the house, drifting down the stairs, came a faint murmur of voices. Aizen's pupils glanced at each other, squared their thin shoulders, and proceeded to be a credit to his teaching. They moved through the doorway and melted into the shadows of the hall, without a sound.


	11. Chapter 11

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 11**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 3/6/15.)

XxXxXxX

Ichigo and Renji were by now fast friends. Ichigo knew everything Renji could tell him about Orihime, Aizen, Hueco Mundo, the Arrancar, and the roguery business in general, and Renji was the richer by several silver pennies. Moreover, there was more to come as soon as he had guided this generous new friend back to Hueco Mundo. Life was good.

They walked briskly along Three Needles Street, contentedly munching the bread and brawn which Ichigo had bought from a hawker, and then turned into a maze of narrow lanes and alleys where Ichigo lost his bearings almost at once.

The sun was still high, but it cast a faintly lurid light, caused by the thin edge of the clouds that were massing higher and higher into the western sky. They weren't muttering thunderously – yet – but one felt that they would at any moment. Renji eyed them distrustfully and edged slightly closer to Ichigo. It made him uneasy. So did a thought that had just struck him. Perhaps Aizen-sama might not altogether approve his telling a strange gentry cove – even the mythical Ichigo – all about them, and bringing him to Hueco Mundo without permission. He paused on the cobbled streets, dubious.

"I better take yer to Aizen-sama, first," he decided, poised on one dirty foot.

Ichigo hesitated. Although he had conceived a strong and altogether irresponsible desire to confront this rogue of an Aizen, good sense dictated that he try to get Orihime away with a minimum of fuss and bother. And Aizen seemed highly likely to create a fuss and bother one way or another.

"It's Orihime I want to see," he pointed out.

"Ar, but Aizen-sama's Upright Man, see? 'E'd 'ave me skin if I done summat 'e didn't like." He looked worried. A cove couldn't do much without his skin. "I'll just take yer to Las Noches instead of Hueco Mundo, 'n you can tell 'im yer wants to see Orihime. But yer needn't tell 'im I brung you, or blabbed. Need yer?" His eyes pleaded.

"Not a word," Ichigo promised, and meant it. They moved on in a state of mutual satisfaction.

XxXxXxX

Orihime, towed unresisting behind Aizen, thought at first they were going out by the front door, for Aizen led her straight there. But then he paused, gave her an expressionless glance, and opened and shut the door. It grated, squealed, squealed again, and banged – leaving them still standing inside.

It was a trap for the Arrancar, of course. Orihime realized it with a new surge of panic. Briefly and wildly she considered making a noise that would warn them – but that would tell Aizen there was something to hide. Besides, she didn't dare, in the teeth of his white smile.

In any case, it was all right. The Arrancar weren't trapped so easily. The silence from the common room betrayed nothing. In a moment Aizen shrugged, nodded, and began leading her through the maze to his secret door, so quietly that only sharply concentrated ears could have heard them from the common room.

Orihime had stopped worrying about the others, and even about the Queen, who, having practically the whole of England ready to die for her, seemed considerably safer at the moment then she was. She stumbled a little in the darkness of the passage, fighting terror. She wanted Sora. She wanted Ichigo. She wanted to burst into tears and scream and throw herself on the ground. But pride and a new sense of acumen prevented her. She would not abase herself before such a vile rogue. And besides, it would, she felt sure, do far more harm than good. So she set her teeth on her lower lip in the dark, and fought for self-possession.

The door at the other end opened, as she had guessed, in Aizen's study. Two wineglasses still stood on the table where a guest had sat quite recently. Aizen closed the door, released her wrist, and turned to gaze down at her quizzically.

Orihime faced him, hoping she looked a great deal bolder than she felt. "What – what are you going to do to me?" she demanded huskily.

Aizen laughed. "Incorrigible princess! Don't look so frightened, my poppet; I shan't serve you up for supper."

"Well, I never thought you would," she retorted, feeling more herself. "But, I mean, are you going to throw me into the Thames or something like that?"

"Why, not just at the moment," he chuckled, apparently not in the least annoyed. "It's not dark enough yet, for one thing. But I do think we had best keep you out of mischief for a while, Orihime. You are such a meddlesome little minx, and not nearly as tractable as you should be." Orihime made a rude noise at him, and he looked amused. "Spirited wench. I may yet train you as my doxy, after all – but you'd have to learn to be as obedient as my kynchin morts, first."

Orihime stuck her lip out, but made no comment. Who was she to undeceive him? Besides, her surge of courage was waning, and fear was creeping back. All he had really said was that he wouldn't throw her in the Thames before dark. She shivered in the sultry evening air.

Momo appeared, and Aizen nodded to her. "We're going to keep Orihime here for a while," he said blandly. "No, not in her usual chamber, where any prigger might climb in the window, or Orihime perhaps accidentally fall out of it." He frowned, clearly not happy about keeping her at all. For a moment he looked like her gardener at home contemplating a weed, and Orihime shivered again. "I think the small room at the top of the house will serve for the night," he concluded at last, and led the way out of the study, through the hall, and up the stairs.

Orihime followed passively, with a sense of reprieve that she knew perfectly well was illogical; but she had half expected to be slaughtered on the spot, and it was a tremendous relief to be told she might live until morning – whether it were really true or not. Momo brought up the rear.

The attic room had only a narrow slit of a window, facing southwest, where the sun burned like molten bronze through thickening clouds. There was a narrow pallet and a three-legged stool, and that was all. Orihime imagine being kept prisoner here for years and years. Then she imagined the more likely alternative, and bit the inside of her lip hard to keep from disgracing herself.

"Very comfortable indeed," said Aizen, at his most benign, and then paused as a knock sounded at the front door far below. Might it be Askin with the gold? "I'll be back presently, Orihime. Be good until then." And with a smile that set her teeth to chattering, he closed the door behind him, and locked it noisily, leaving Orihime alone with her very frightening thoughts.

XxXxXxX

Renji delivered Ichigo to the front door of Hueco Mundo and then prudently took to his heels. Ichigo, neither surprised nor dismayed, took a deep breath and knocked.

The door was opened presently by a muscular, dark-skinned fellow who reminded Ichigo of a wolf in sheep's clothing. He eyed Ichigo with suspicion, seemed about to slam the door in his face, and then looked again, taking in the well-fitting sapphire hosen, fine damask doublet slashed with lime satin, snowy linen ruff, and jeweled rapier hanging from the silver belt. Another foolish young noble for Aizen's plucking? Tousen hesitated. It seemed quite possible. But on the other hand, no one got into Las Noches without some sort of credentials.

Ichigo put on an air of insouciance. "I wish to see – er – Master Aizen," he announced, the insouciance rather spoiled by his not knowing what title to give an Upright Man.

Tousen, perceiving this, began to swing the door. "'E's out."

"Then I shall come in and await his return."

"Yer won't. Carn't come in 'ere." Tousen blocked the entrance.

"I can, you know." Ichigo slipped neatly under the uplifted arm, feeling pleased with his own audacity. He felt like St. George ready to demolish any number of dragons, until an infuriated dragonish sound from Tousen behind him caused him to skip nimbly but quite without dignity across the great entrance hall toward the stairway.

A tangle of rushes wound itself around his feet, and Ichigo found himself sprawled ignominiously at the foot of the stairs, staring at a pair of fine rosetted pantofles which had just come down them.

"What's to do, Kaname?" demanded a cool voice that stopped the muscular doorman just as he was about to fling himself on Ichigo. It also caused two other hurrying servants to pause where they were, alert and obviously armed. Tousen began to sputter explanations.

Ichigo, abandoning all pretense at audacity or even dignity, propped a resigned chin on his hand and looked up. Up gorgeous magenta hosen, slashed satin trunks and splendid emerald doublet, past a ruff as wide as a cartwheel to an elegant, aristocratic face, with tousled brown hair and deep brown eyes. Ichigo blinked. The man stared down at him with mild interest.

"Cock's bones!" said Ichigo with candid astonishment. "Are you Aizen?" He had expected something altogether different.

"Some call me that," said Aizen, raising his eyebrows in a way that should have utterly destroyed Ichigo's savoir-faire if he had any left. As he didn't, it left him unmoved.

"Cock's bones!" he said again, in wonder.

Tousen rumbled again. "Soft, now," said Aizen, amused. "I doubt not the – er – young man has what he feels are excellent good reasons to come visiting without his manners." And he smiled again in a way that should have caused Ichigo to feel like a small boy caught in the comfits by his hostess.

It failed. Ichigo didn't even notice, in fact. He was busy picking himself up from the rushes and sorting out his thoughts. Missing the sarcasm altogether, he simply answered the question. "Oh, aye," he said. "Excellent good reasons. I've come for Orihime."

Aizen should surely have looked guilty, or at least faintly startled. He didn't, of course. "A weaver princess?" he repeated, mildly inquiring. "I'm afraid there are no royalty here. You'd best look somewhere else, although no doubt we are flattered by your suggestion. Indeed, one might think –"

"Mistress Orihime Inoue," interrupted Ichigo briskly. "At once," he added, trying to look as severe and threatening as his face would permit.

Aizen's eyes narrowed, and then widened. His face took on an expression of amused disbelief. "You can't be Ichigo!" he cried.

There was a sudden flurry of movement at the tapestry halfway up the first flight of stairs, and an instant later a gust of hot wind blew sharply in at the casement, causing all the candles to flicker. No one noticed that the tapestry moved before the breeze hit it.

"You can't be Ichigo!" Aizen was repeating in amazed tones.

Ichigo glowered at him, momentarily disconcerted. "Why can't I?" he demanded.

"Because –" Aizen leaned against the wall, smiling. "Because Ichigo is a poor-spirited sort of fellow: the soul of prudence: a dash of cold water on anything the least bit exciting or adventurous: a tame sort of varlet altogether, and never by any chance a reckless firebrand who comes bluffing his way single-handed into a den of lions."

Ichigo had begun to grin despite himself, for Aizen's good nature was outrageously infectious. "Oh, aye," he conceded ruefully. "That's what she always says. And doubtless I am an altogether pigeon-livered fellow – but at least I'm no rogue," he added bleakly, banishing his grin with a sense of having consorted with the enemy. "And that's a matter between Orihime and me in any case. I want her back at once. Where is she?"

"Who?" asked Aizen, bland as milk, his brown eyes dancing wickedly.

Ichigo turned scarlet, clenched his fists, and controlled himself with a truly heroic effort. It was increasingly clear that he was going to need all his wits this evening, and losing his temper would not sharpen them.

"Why fence about?" he demanded. "I know you've got her, and you know I know."

"Welladay." Aizen sighed and shrugged ruefully. "I see Orihime has badly underrated you. I don't suppose I could persuade you under any circumstances just to go away and forget the whole thing? No? I thought not. Ah well, then; come along into my study, and we'll talk about it." And he led the way up half a dozen stairs and through a wainscoted door.

Ichigo hesitated, and then with a mental shrug, followed. There were any number of traps he might be walking into – but having already got to the heart of the lion's den, why jib now?

XxXxXxX

Orihime sat in a despairing heap by the locked door, tears rolling silently down her cheeks. Escape was impossible; the top story overhung all the others, and the window presented only a sheer drop of three stories to the cobblestones below. It was all hopeless then: she and the Queen were both doomed, and there was no help anywhere. If only –

Almost at once there was a sound on the other side of the door. Orihime shrank back in fear, and half scrambled to her feet. It was the thing she had been fearing all along: Aizen had changed his mind and come back to silence her here and now.

But the sound came again, and Orihime paused. For the sound was faint and furtive, and surely there was a whispered argument going on outside the door?

A scratch on the door panel then. An urgent, frightened whisper.

"Orihime?"

The very caution made Orihime certain that, somehow, help had come. "Yes?" she breathed, her mouth to the crack. "Oh, let me out!"

In answer there was the grating of the heavy bolts, and then the door pushed slowly open to reveal a beaming Rukia, momentarily forgetful of the dangers of the situation.

Nel hadn't forgotten. Her face was an odd cheesy color in the twilight of the corridor, and she shifted from one foot to the other in almost unbearable nervousness.

"'E's still downstairs, Aizen-sama is," she whispered hoarsely. "'Ow'll we get out? 'E's in the room where the tunnel comes out."

"Wiv Ichigo," added Rukia with satisfaction.

Orihime stared. "Ichigo?" she echoed incredulously.

"Ar. 'E said 'e'd come for you, and Aizen-sama said come to 'is study to talk it over. And they did. And they're still there."

She was talking to air. Orihime, far more familiar with Las Noches then either Rukia or Nel, was already whisking herself silently to the top of the stairs, to peer down at the hall below. Ichigo here? But how? How could he have found her? And how could he have walked into Aizen's clutches that way? Why, he was as gullible as she had been! Wrath and alarm arose in her simultaneously as she peered down the stairs.

Tousen had lit the candles in the alcove of the landing, and they made small pools of yellow light surrounded by deep shadows. The rising wind drifted through the house in eddies, causing the flames to waver, and the tapestries to swing and ripple on the walls, and the shadows to sway, as if it were all under the sea. A tricky kind of light. It was extremely hard to tell whether anyone was in sight or not. Orihime peered down for a few long moments, Nel breathing hard over her shoulder, and Rukia at her elbow.

Nothing human stirred. Only wind and shadows and tapestries. Tapestries... Orihime gave a sudden nod, touched Nel's arm, and wafted down the stairs like a wraith, followed by two thinner ghosts. They reached the bottom stair, paused for a moment, dark shapes among dark shapes, and drifted over to the wall nearest the study. The tapestry swung outward, rippled slightly, and settled itself again in its soft wind-blown dance. Only the sharpest eyes, looking for something odd, would have noticed the three girl-shapes in a still row behind it.

XxXxXxX

"Now then, my young fire-eater," said Aizen. "Sit down, and have some claret, and tell me just what it is you think you know and how you learned it."

Ichigo refused the wine – more wisely than he knew, as Orihime could have told him – and concentrated on the verbal trap. He must not involve Renji, whatever he did.

"I don't think I'll tell you everything," he said candidly, as he seated himself in a carved oaken chair opposite Aizen. "Why should I? But I might point out that if you let her go wandering all over London with all that copper hair flying about, you ought not to be too surprised if someone recognizes her and follows her back."

Aizen looked briefly annoyed, doubtless for having underestimated the opposition. Then he smiled again. "Welladay. And if I don't choose to return her?"

Even though Ichigo had contemplated this, he couldn't help feeling angry and bewildered. "But – but, that's monstrous!" he stormed. "Anyway, what on earth could you possibly want with her? She's a perfect shatterwit."

"That's true," agreed Aizen, apparently much struck by this.

"Then – then why are you keeping her, pray?"

"My dear Ichigo!" Aizen shook a pitying head. "When a charming and valuable pearl carefully arranges for no one to know where it is, and then obligingly drops itself into my pocket, you surely don't suppose I'd refuse it, do you? It would be rank ingratitude."

Ichigo lowered his eyes, trying not to show that Aizen had scored a hit. "To be sure," he murmured, between his teeth. "Indeed, I quite see. Still –" He found that he could look up with an air of dispassion. "Still, I wonder if you don't sometimes find that stolen pearls – even charming and valuable ones – turn out to be more trouble than they're worth?" He felt quite safe in guessing this. Unless Orihime had changed out of all comprehension, her independence of spirit must surely have disconcerted even a man like Aizen.

Aizen's eyes barely flickered. "Ah," he said. "There's the crux of the thing, of course. How much is a pearl worth? You see, my dear Ichigo, even aside from the ransom – I did mention ransom, didn't I? No? Lackaday! Well, aside from that, I felt that I could use her as a most opportune aid in a certain small bit of business I'd been working on. Well, she's served her purpose there, but I'm not at all sure I want to let her go." He looked thoughtful. "Actually, I might say I'm quite certain that I don't. For one thing, she's an engaging little minx, and I'm might well decide to keep and train her to be my doxy one day." He grinned wickedly as Ichigo went scarlet. "She's promising, by my fay. More intelligent than she appears." He frowned. "In fact, rather too intelligent, I fear. She's been far too inquisitive, my young friend; a fault I see she shares with you. It's a pity –" He shook a regretful head and fell into deep reflection.

"What do you mean?" demanded Ichigo uneasily. He braced both arms on those of the carved oaken chair, ready for quick defense, but uncomfortably aware that his rapier was little more than a toy and that he had never used it in earnest; whereas Aizen – "What's a pity?"

But Aizen's smile was so warm, so merry, so ingenuous, that Ichigo felt a bit silly. "What? Oh, I was but saying it's a pity you two will go on complicating my life so abominably," he complained. Ichigo, quite disarmed by this, relaxed again. It was a mistake Orihime could have warned him about, but she was in no position to do so; and Aizen went on, at his most charming. "I suppose you're right, and I'd best give up the idea of keeping her, after all." He sighed, wistful. "Well, then, naught for it but to get the both of you out of my hair right away, eh? Wait you here, young Ichigo, whilst I go see about it."

It was not until the study door closed behind Aizen and the key turned decisively in the lock that Ichigo realize there could be more than one way of taking that last remark.

It being too late for action, he sat still for an instant, the back of his neck prickling under his ruff. The air was suddenly more thick and stifling than ever under the burden of the building storm. Ichigo tried the door, with moist palms, just to make sure. It was locked, with the huge key, infuriatingly, left in the other side, blocking the keyhole. He could almost touch it with the tip of his little finger, but it might as well have been in Guildford for all the good it did him. He could neither push nor shake it loose.

He straightened, baffled, angry, incredulous, and deeply alarmed. What might be happening to Orihime this very minute, while he, like a greengoose, was trapped and helpless? The thought chilled him despite the heat that sent a trickle of perspiration down the inside of his ruff.

Silence. A rat scuttled somewhere behind the wainscoting and stopped again as the slow, heavy step of a man – probably Tousen – came by, paused, and went on again. More silence. More faint scrabbling. And then – the key moved in the lock.

Ichigo started, fingers on his rapier hilt. The key grated, stuck, turned with a clunk. Out of the shadows there appeared an indignant face topped with copper hair. Finger to lips, it slipped into the room, followed by two girls whom Ichigo recognized at once. Ignoring him for the moment, Orihime closed the door softly behind her and locked it from the inside. "That should confuse him when he comes back," she observed with satisfaction. After which she turned and surveyed Ichigo for a long reproachful moment.

"Well, it's about time you came!" she told him tartly. "And now, how would you like to be rescued by a perfect shatterwit?"

XxXxXxX

**A/N:** Orihime rescues Ichigo this time! ;)


	12. Chapter 12

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 12**

**A/N: **Second to last chapter.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 3/14/15.)

XxXxXxX

The secret tunnel was having an extremely busy day. This time it was four figures who made the trip back from Las Noches to Hueco Mundo. It was risky, of course – but considerably less risky than anything else they could think of. And in any case, they had all four of them been doing so many hair-raising things that evening that they were getting quite used to being scared half out of their wits. Besides, as Ichigo pointed out hopefully, Aizen was unlikely to use his secret door in front of his prisoner.

It occurred to him presently that a prisoner destined, alas, for an early grave might not require such caution. It was a disturbing idea, and one he thought it kind not to mention to the girls – who, as it turned out, had thought of it even before he did. After all, they knew Aizen quite a bit better than did Ichigo.

What with one thing and another, there was a distinct sense of urgency about their progress through the tunnel, and a wary look in their eyes as they stood at last peering out into the blind passage in Hueco Mundo.

Dim and muffled from the common room came the murmur of voices, almost as if this were just any summer evening with no storm brewing other than in the sky. They were almost safe, now: there was just the problem of getting to the front door and then out of Slops Alley without meeting any of the Arrancar coming home.

"C'm on!" breathed Rukia, wanting to get it over. Orihime nodded. Ichigo, knowing nothing about Hueco Mundo, could only hope that the girls knew what they were doing. Hearts beating hard, they tiptoed forward through the maze toward the front door – and the front door screeched open.

They froze, only one corner between them and the light footsteps that the girls instantly recognized as Aizen's. Down the other corridor he moved, toward the common room.

In a moment they heard his calm, deep voice. "Ho, Starrk! I have –" His voice faded into a sudden babble of Cockney. Ichigo could scarcely understand a word. But Aizen's voice was clear enough.

"Really? Starrk's not here? Then where did he go, Ulquiorra?" he said, after a moment of the babble.

In the dark of the narrow maze, four pairs of hands clutched at one another tensely, while Ulquiorra's voice in the common room murmured alone.

"I see." Aizen's voice sounded lazy, amused, dangerous. There was a brief but interminable silence. Then his footsteps came back, along the passage to the front door, which groaned open and thudded shut. Ichigo started to move, but Orihime, wise by now in Aizen's wiles, clutched his sleeve in warning. The silence held. The sound of voices rose again in the common room. Slowly four pairs of lungs in the dark maze began to breathe again.

And the next time the front door groaned and thudded, no one came in.

XxXxXxX

Uryuu ambled along the Strand towards Ludgate, grumbling to himself. It seemed he was doomed to spend his life hunting either for Ichigo's red-haired runaway who probably deserved never to be found, or else for Ichigo himself. Or both. Life was too short and too complicated. For there was also his own problem, still unsolved. Every time he decided it was his plain duty to tell his father the things Meninas had hinted at, he found himself tongue-tied by Lord Ishida's worried, preoccupied air.

He sighed again as he neared the eastern end of Fleet Street and the London wall loomed ahead. That was the trouble with life, in a nutshell. Much too complicated.

Almost instantly it became even more so. A group of extremely disreputable young people was swarming out Ludgate toward him. Uryuu didn't at all like their looks, and suddenly wished he had brought his bodyguard. As he regarded them with wary disfavor, he found his eyes fixing themselves particularly on a vacant-faced, hulking young man whom he had surely seen before. And the girl with brassy hair and generous bosom, too... He remembered where. They had gone into that house. The one he could never find again. The one where Orihime had gone. Fate, it seemed, was presenting him with a second chance.

Uryuu muttered something unkind about fate. Then, as the group drew abreast of him, he sighed and did his duty.

"Look here," he said, addressing them impartially. "What have you done with young Orihime?"

The effect was truly remarkable. The entire group stopped short and fixed him with an assortment of beady eyes that made his spine crawl. He instinctively reached down to his belt to protect his pocket, and just in time. The small hand slithered away from his touch, and a small voice hissed an obscenity in tones of deep annoyance.

Rangiku took the initiative. "'Oo are you?" she demanded aggressively. "Wot d'yer know abaht Orihime?" The Arrancar exchanged glances, suspicious by instinct and training of all gentry coves. "'Ow d'yer know we knows 'er?"

"I saw some of you with her not a fortnight ago," returned Uryuu. He looked severe. "'Tis monstrous, you know. Keeping her, I mean. Ichigo has been in a vile temper, trying to find her, and half the gentry in Westminster are laughing at him."

More looks were exchanged. This gentry cove might be useful, at that. "'Er's told us all abaht Ichigo," said Starrk affably. "'Oo are you, then? 'Ermes? Can't be 'Eracles," he informed the others. "Too capsy."

"I'm Ichigo's friend," said Uryuu impatiently, annoyed at being discussed and cross-examined in this casual manner when he should be the one asking the questions. "Ichigo has been staying with me. My father, I mean. Lord Ishida. And I'm looking for Ichigo now, and he's off somewhere looking for Orihime. What have you done with her?"

They ignored this last question. "Lord Ishida?" echoed Loly. "A real lord? Coo! 'Ere, Menoly, give 'im 'is purse back! And you, Grimmjow; keep your fambles off 'is shoe buckles. Look 'ere, young sir, us 'as got ter see the Queen. Or at least Yamamoto," she amended reasonably.

"Eh?" Uryuu's face was a study.

"It's a Quincy plot," said Rangiku, coming to the heart of the matter.

This produced the most gratifying attention. "Plot?" bleated Uryuu. He grabbed the nearest arm with an amazing disregard for the insect life doubtless inhabiting it. "Plot!" He shoved his face close. "What plot?"

Everyone talked at once. It took a full five minutes of jabbering and slow translation of thieves' cant into English before Uryuu managed to get a clear picture in his mind. Faced with another decision, he grappled manfully for a moment before it dawned on him that there was a logical solution which would also solve his own dilemma.

"Come tell my father about it," he said with sudden decision, and began to lead the way back toward the Strand. He felt rather like a modern 16th-century version of the Pied Piper– but oddly sure of himself for a change, and not even seriously disconcerted at his extraordinary company.

The Arrancar, like a comet's tail, trailed behind, chattering lightheartedly. Everything was all right. Now, they told each other, the Queen would be saved, and Aizen never know a thing about their part in it. It was a pity about Orihime, of course; they'd miss her sorely. But that was life, wasn't it? The odds were against any of them living to a ripe old age, and really, it was only the Queen who mattered.

When they reached Ishida House, Uryuu, struck by a belated sense of caution, suggested that they all wait outside while he went into his father. They hooted. Not they, they assured him. They'd just stay close and make sure the Queen got the warning – and, just incidentally, that they got the reward sure to be presented for such loyal service.

Uryuu sighed and didn't argue. Bearing with resignation and some dignity the astonished glances of the servants, he commanded curtly that these – er – young persons should wait in the entry hall. And before Rangiku could protest, he shrewdly selected her to go with him to see his father. He knew quite well what he was doing. Let her be the one to tell Father what was going on among his kinfolk.

Rangiku did so, unabashed by the richness of her surroundings. It was a pity Orihime hadn't had the chance to blab a bit more before Aizen came in, but there it was. But it was enough, surely, to come crab on the Quincy plotters and save Queen Bess. Lord Ishida, she noted, was wearing a rather odd expression by the time she'd finished.

Looking much older than he had, he turned to stare out the window into the murky dusk. "Aye, we'd best to Yamamoto," he said after a while. "Did you say, Uryuu, that you had several more – er – guests – waiting below?"

Uryuu nodded. "If the hall's still there at all," he mused pessimistically. "I warrant they've pocketed even the tapestries and footmen by now. They picked my pocket at least three times on the way here, and even filched my shoe buckles; and only gave them back because this girl and a tall fellow they call Starrk said something in that heathenish cant –"

"Said you be cully even if you are a flash cove," Rangiku informed him in tones of aggrieved virtue. "And Starrk said as 'e'd douse the glims of any weevily scab wot prigged you again. 'E never said nuffin' about your 'ouse, though," she pointed out cheerfully, "so belike you're right abaht the 'all." Her brow furrowed as she realized she'd had no opportunity at the entry hall, and the others would have got everything long before now. Always sensible and foresighted about such things, she at once helped herself to a fine silver-filigreed pouncet box, bejeweled and enameled, that lay conveniently on the table. Neither Lord Ishida nor his son saw a thing. In any case, their attention was distracted by what was probably going on downstairs.

"'Swounds!" said Lord Ishida, and hurried down, Uryuu behind him. Rangiku, bringing up the rear, found ample opportunity to collect a nice little candle-snuffer in passing.

Below, the rest of the Arrancar stood staring around at the rich entry hall with wide eyes, and making candid comments about the servants, who stood watching with nervous alertness.

"'Is Lordship's going ter take us ter Yamamoto," Rangiku informed them, noting with satisfaction that the rich hall was considerably less rich than it had been.

Uryuu noticed as well, and had a burst of brilliance, based partly on his experience of the past half hour. "Aye," he said affably. "And it might be awkward, mark you, if any – er – prigged loot – were found on you in front of the Secretary of State and Head of Secret Service, so I think you'd best put everything back at once, and say you were just practicing." And he grinned at them good-naturedly, much to everyone's surprise – including his own. But he was so relieved at being out of his personal dilemma that he was willing to make allowances for anyone, even these appalling young thieves from the dregs of the social order.

The Arrancar turned saintly innocent gazes upon him. The servants looked reproachful. Was he accusing them of carelessness?

"We've been watching them every instant, Master Uryuu," said the head footman, pained. "They haven't touched a thing, I vow."

Uryuu raised a skeptical eyebrow and grinned at Rangiku, who scowled, looked virtuous, and then shrugged and grinned back.

"'Ere you are, young flash cove," she said, producing the pouncet box and candle-snuffer, and enjoying his startled face. The others, reluctantly following her lead, turned out a score of small objects, some of which had been on the very persons of the servants, who looked deeply chagrined.

"Mind," said Rangiku, cuffing one of the youngsters to encourage compliance, "we'll be 'aving a good reward, we will." And turning back to Uryuu, she exclaimed, "C'mon, then; wot are we waiting for?"

They set out for Yamamoto.

XxXxXxX

Uryuu wondered afterwards whether the covey of ragged and unprepossessing street urchins would ever have got in to see Yamamoto had they been alone. On the whole he rather thought they were, for they came armed with that magic password: Quincy Plot. With that and the dignified and well-known presence of Lord Ishida, they were instantly ushered into a rich anteroom where they waited such a short time that they never got around to prigging a thing. So when, presently, they faced Sir Yamamoto, it was with faces of genuine if temporary innocence.

He was still at work, late though it was. He sat behind a heavy oaken table covered with documents, reports, and lists, flanked by two overworked secretaries and two armed guards, his long white beard trailing almost to the desk. The richly somber room was lit well but fitfully by sconces of tall wax candles that flickered with every gust of warm wind through the tall open casements. Outside, above a shadowed garden, the summer dusk was darkening with unnatural rapidity. A pile of thunderheads obscured the setting sun and shot out little tongues of lightning, and thunder grumbled an accompaniment. Sir Yamamoto raised deep-set eyes under heavy white brows, surveyed the peculiarly ill-assorted group with keen appraisal, and then fixed his attention on Uryuu and his father with brooding intensity.

Uryuu shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Who would ever have thought that he, a loyal Quincy himself, would of his own free will stand here facing the man who it was known had condoned the Quincy genocide long ago. Thousands of men, women, and children had been ruthlessly butchered by one of Yamamoto's direct reports, Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Nevertheless, as a servant to Queen Elizabeth, Sir Yamamoto now faithfully supported her extraordinary policy of religious tolerance.

"Well?" he asked dryly of Lord Ishida.

Uryuu's father clearly felt as uncomfortable as did he, but he maintained a grave dignity that made Uryuu proud of him. "These – er – youths, or the girl here, actually, have just told me of a new plot against Her Majesty. I know nothing of it, personally, nor whether it be true or not; but I judged it my duty to bring them to you at once."

There was a short hard silence between the two men, like duelers testing each other's mettle for the first time. Clearly Sir Yamamoto had a dark suspicious nature that saw treachery in every Quincy, and considered this most likely to be an extremely clever and subtle new kind of trick. His eyes moved to Uryuu, who flushed but met them straight.

"I know what you're thinking," he blurted resentfully, "but it isn't true."

A wintry smile flickered across Sir Yamamoto's lean face, and his attention moved on to the Arrancar, who were bunched together for courage, trying to work themselves up to their normal state of cockiness. "Tell me about it, then," he said, his voice surprisingly kind.

Rangiku, Loly, and Starrk took turns explaining. Uryuu subdued a wry grin as the broad cockney flowed forth, liberally laced with thieves' cant. He could hardly understand two words in five, himself.

"Aizen-sama's a coney-catcher, see, 'n 'twas 'e twigged it, when 'e got cully with this Quincy gentry cove and 'is family, wot thought Aizen-sama was a flash cove too, see: that was 'is lay. So 'e let 'em convert 'im to a Quincy – only not really, you know – and took Orihime along as 'is daughter to be friends with their dell, and be converted, too, 'cos 'er really is a gentry mort, see: Orihime, I mean. None of us could've talked right," Rangiku admitted modestly. "Not even me. So anyway, the Quincy dell's a havey-cavey peagoose wot squeaked beef ter Orihime about this Enterprise, see, and –"

"This what?" Yamamoto, who seemed to be having remarkably little difficulty with the language barrier, leaned forward suddenly, his eyes sharper than ever in his scarred face. "What did you call it?"

Rangiku and Loly looked at each other. "Orihime called it that. Something like The Enterprise, any'ow... Didn't she?" They looked at the others, and they nodded solemn support. Sir Yamamoto flicked a swift commanding glance at the secretary on his left, who, in fact, was already reaching for a sheaf of closely-written documents. This he proceeded to hunt through with the air of a hound who has at last caught sight of the fox.

Yamamoto turned back to them. "Go on," he said encouragingly.

Starrk took up the thread. "Ar, well. The Enterprise is a new plot ter do in our Queen 'n prig 'er crown 'n give England ter Juha Bach."

"Yes, yes, but the details? Who, and when, and how?"

"'At's all us knows," Rangiku told him, crestfallen. "'S Aizen 'n Orihime knows all about it. Orihime only told us a bit."

Really, Yamamoto could look very grim indeed. Uryuu, now well on the left side of the room, near the casements (for the Arrancar were distinctly odorous in a closed room), was glad those eyes weren't on him.

"Why didn't they come to me, then, instead of sending you?"

The Arrancar shuffled their feet slightly. They looked at one another. They sighed a little with a strong air of wishing themselves somewhere else. But Yamamoto's eyes were compelling, and Starrk at last spoke.

"'E was going to," he explained. "But 'e 'adn't got round to it yet. 'Ad a bit of business wiv the Quincies, see. Make a bit of profit, like. 'E 'as ter make a livin', yer know," he added reasonably. "So 'e told 'em 'e'd twigged their lay 'n they'd 'ave ter fork over some rhino or 'e'd squeak beef. They're Quincies, see." Clearly this made anything anyone did to them all right. "Only –" He dried up suddenly, and Rangiku took over the difficult bit.

"See, we – well, 'twas takin' a mort of time, see, and – uh –"

Yamamoto came to her rescue. "And you came along to me because you feared it might slip his mind altogether?" he suggested, his manner sympathetic now.

"Ar," she agreed. "'At's it. 'E's absent-minded, like, Aizen-sama is, see." She looked at the others, who instantly backed this up.

"Abaht some fings, any'ow," they amended honestly, and then peered anxiously to see how Yamamoto would receive this information.

He nodded. "Aye; just so. Many people are, I've noticed. Important matters of – business and profit do tend to – dominate the attention."

His irony was lost on them. They sighed and smiled happily.

"And what about this other person? This Orihime?"

Pained silence. Furtive and abashed glances were exchanged, and bare feet shuffled silently on the clean rushes. They'd like to help Orihime, of course, but was this possible without squeaking on Aizen-sama? Probably not. In any case, it was doubtless too late for Orihime.

But Yamamoto was fixing them with his eagle stare, sharp and demanding. "Don't you love your Queen, after all?" he asked them, undertones of danger in his voice. "Come, tell me; where is this Orihime you mentioned?"

"'Er's scrobbled," blurted young Grimmjow, breaking under the threat. "Cocked up 'er toes by now. Aizen 'eard 'er blabbin' 'n took 'er off. That's why we come," he confessed simply, abandoning pretense.

There was a brief but stunned silence in the stifling room as the meaning of this sank in.

"Orihime?" Uryuu croaked. "Ichigo's Orihime, that he's been hunting all over London for; the one with red hair. You mean she's killed?" His voice rose to a horrified squeak, and he glared across the room at the Arrancar, aghast.

They nodded sheepishly, clearly most unhappy over the whole thing.

Lord Ishida wore the shocked look of a man struck down, and Yamamoto half rose from his chair and reached for a bell on his table, which he rang violently. An armed servant instantly rushed in.

"The guard!" snapped Sir Yamamoto. "A score of men, armed, at the gate in one minute's time." He turned to the quaking Arrancar. "One of you will guide them."

The Arrancar stared. "Who?" they asked. "Where?"

"To wherever this Aizen and Orihime are likely to be. You know more about it than I do; use your judgment. Do you want to save the Queen or don't you?" he hissed as they hesitated.

Rangiku took a deep breath and stepped forward. Starrk nodded.

"'Strewf," he said. "You'll want two, then; one for Las Noches and one for Hueco Mundo. Grimmjow, you'll go, too."

In a matter of seconds Rangiku and Grimmjow were ushered out under the lowering sky where twenty armed guards, still adjusting swords and cloaks, hurried into formation. And silence reigned in Yamamoto's chamber, broken presently by a sharp gust of wind and a guard closing the casement. Uryuu swallowed, feeling ill. Poor Ichigo!

The eyes of Lord Ishida and Sir Yamamoto met, haunted and appalled. Uryuu, with unusual perspicacity, saw the mutual mistrust melt for a moment as each of them recognized in the other a man of sincerity, doing his best to choose right among all the possible wrongs.


	13. Chapter 13

**Saving Queen Bess – Chapter 13**

**A/N: **Happy spring equinox! Here is the last chapter of this story.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Bleach_ by Tite Kubo or _Linnet_ by Sally Watson. This is fanfiction and as such is understood to be derivative of these works; I do not receive any monetary benefit in any way from the publication of this story. In this story, I couldn't resist using multiple quotes and whole scenes directly from the original young adult historical fiction novel _Linnet_ because they were so good and so apropos, especially the authentic depiction of the language as it was spoken in sixteenth-century England. So I reiterate that I do not claim anything out of _Linnet_ as mine; and hopefully this fanfic will be taken as an enticement for my readers to go out and purchase this wonderful book, which is recently back in print at Image Cascade Publishing after having been out-of-print for many years. (Google "Image Cascade" and "Sally Watson" for the link.) Please, do support the original work this fic is based on.

(Originally posted 3/21/15.)

XxXxXxX

It was lovely, squabbling with Ichigo again. They did it all the way across London and down Fleet Street, alternately scolding each other and telling each other their adventures, and arguing about what they should have done and ought to do and what was going to happen now. They were followed in fascinated silence by Nel and Rukia, and Renji, who had seen them at the corner of Slops Alley and at once attached himself.

"Well, I'm not at all sure I like the way you went around describing me," Orihime grumbled as they went through Ludgate. "Still, it was clever of you to track me down that way; I doubt anyone else could have done it. All the same, when Mistress Catnipp practically told you about me, you –"

"She didn't. She just said Meninas' friend Oriana had apricot hair."

Orihime tossed the apricot hair in question. "Well, you should have known it was me."

"You? A Quincy convert with a different name and a strange father? Besides, Mistress Catnipp had seen still another apricot-haired girl, in Chepeside."

"That was me, too," Orihime informed him triumphantly. "I remember: she was staring out her litter at me, and I turned my back just in time." She looked around. "I suppose you do know where we're going?" she added in tones suggesting that she wasn't at all sure.

Rukia emerged from an unnaturally long silence. "Ter tell Yamamoto about the plot, blubber'ead!" she bawled from behind.

"Well, naturally," said Orihime. "But where? Does anybody know where to find him?"

There was a disconcerted silence.

"Whitehall," remembered Renji. "All 'Er Majesty's court lives at Whitehall, don't they?"

"That's what I mean," said Orihime. "That's an awful lot of people, isn't it? And Whitehall's terribly big, isn't it? I don't think it would be very practical just to go wandering around hoping he'll come bumping into us and introduce himself."

She peered up at Ichigo sideways and saw him smother a grin. It was all right, then; he knew where to go. She gave a small skip of contentment. Thunder growled overhead. She frowned up at the looming clouds and gave vent to the thought that had been haunting them all – or at least four of them – all the way from Slops Alley.

"I wonder where Aizen is, and if he's found us gone yet, and what he'll do about it when he does."

Nel shuddered, preferring not to think about it. Ichigo, whose knowledge of Aizen was still young, looked mildly surprised.

"Who cares?"

Renji and the girls exchanged meaningful glances. Renji put their feelings in a nutshell.

"Coo!" he said simply.

The sky was even darker as they reached the Strand, and thunder rumbled with a nearer and more businesslike sound. By the time they reached the village of Charing Cross, there were few others on the street, and those few hurrying for shelter with uneasy glances upward. Only the group of liveried guards who came toward them with two shabby figures who resembled – well, almost...

Orihime turned her head. "Isn't that Rangiku and Grimmjow with those soldiers?" she suggested.

Nel at once squeaked with alarm, but Rukia and Renji hooted. "Walking with soldier coves? Think they're betwaddled or somefing?"

But before Orihime's appreciative giggle reached her lips, the skies opened. There was a shattering explosion of thunder, and even as they flinched from it, they were blinded, battered, and drenched by an avalanche of rain. Visibility reduced itself to inches, and surely it was sheer lunacy not to get under the nearest doorway.

But then, while they hesitated, a score of dim shapes slogged determinedly past, head down against the deluge, heading toward London. Ichigo set his teeth. If those soldiers could carry on, then he was certainly not going to cry quits! He looked at Orihime, who grinned recklessly and nodded. Why not, since they couldn't possibly get any wetter than they were already? Teeth set, they pressed on against the storm, around the river bend, and southward to Whitehall.

Whitehall Palace was indeed enormous. The rain was easing now, and Orihime's eyes widened at the rambling pile of it, covering 24 acres: the largest palace in Christendom, said Ichigo, as he led them to the turreted gateway.

The guards on each side were feeling wet and steamy and bad-tempered. They looked sourly at Ichigo, who, looking and sounding more confident than he felt, strode up and demanded to be taken to Yamamoto.

The taller guard looked down his nose. Sir Yamamoto, he informed them, was the Queen's most important minister. He hadn't time to see random people at all times of night.

"'Sooth," agreed Ichigo, with an air that caused both guards to look at him again. The sodden clothes this young man was wearing were those of a gentleman, however dubious those ragamuffins with him. "Don't be officious," Ichigo went on rather snappishly. "You know as well as I do that Sir Yamamoto is always available to those who bear word of –" He paused dramatically before intoning the magic password. "– of a Quincy Plot."

"Oh," said the taller guard weakly. It was true. It was also true that by now everyone in England must know that password – but it was not, thank goodness, a mere Yeoman's duty to sort out the frauds. He sighed and called for the Captain of the Guard, who set the proper wheels in motion, and in a short time word of their names and errand had been sent to the Secretary of State and spoken privately in his ear. Back came a forceful answer, and in an even shorter time, Ichigo and party were ushered into Yamamoto's chamber.

There was a stupefied silence when the dripping quintet appeared in the doorway. Ichigo broke it first.

"I told you I'd find her in London," he observed, looking at Uryuu and his father. "But what are you –"

He was interrupted by Loly, who let out a wail expressing the convictions of the other Arrancar. "Ow, 'tis 'er ghost!"

Orihime was staring at them with pleased astonishment. "Oh, you came! I'm so glad! I should have known you'd never leave the Queen in the nitch."

There was a brief silence while the Arrancar stared at Orihime, and then everyone turned to look at Yamamoto. But he was getting his information merely by sitting in silence absorbing every sound and gesture and expression. They all look back at one another, and Orihime giggled.

That decided the Arrancar.

"You ain't cocked up your toes," decided Starrk, incredulous. "But –'ow'd yer get away from Aizen-sama?"

"Us saved 'er!" shouted Rukia brashly from behind. "Nel 'n me! 'N then all of us saved Ichigo, and –"

"Ichigo!" yelped the Arrancar, fascinated. "Coo, izzat Ichigo then?"

Orihime ignored them and turned directly to Sir Yamamoto. "I'm Orihime Inoue, Sir. Have Starrk and the others told you all about The Enterprise?"

"Not quite all," he said with admirable restraint. "Only that it exists, in point of fact. Am I to gather that you are the Orihime everyone has been talking about?" Everyone nodded. "Well, I don't suppose you and Master Kurosaki here happened to run into an unfortunate party out looking for you? No? Never mind. I warrant they'll find their way back eventually – perhaps bringing this Aizen, whom I should very much like to meet." (The Arrancar looked horrified at this idea; particularly Nel, Rukia, and Renji, who began glancing around the room for possible exits and hiding places.) "Now, if you can spare a few moments, Mistress Orihime, do you think you might enlighten me regarding this Enterprise? I've been wondrous patient, I think, but I am a busy man, and have not yet had my supper, and what with one interruption after another I –"

At that moment there was another interruption.

It took the form of Aizen. He strolled in, unannounced and with a spluttering doorman in his wake, as nonchalantly as if he owned the place. Pausing for a splendid and sweeping bow to Sir Yamamoto, he then turned to gaze at the quaking Arrancar with affable interest. For the moment he quite overlooked Ichigo and Orihime, who were over by the window and behind Lord Ishida and Uryuu. And Orihime, like the stricken Arrancar, felt a strong desire to be invisible. Was Aizen in league with Satan after all? To sweep in like this – and with only half a dozen splotches of rain marring the fine sky-blue of his cloak.

Then she pulled herself together. Not magic: just Aizen. He was dry because he had taken shelter from the rain. And this explained how it was that he left Hueco Mundo a few minutes before them, and arrived now, a few minutes after them. His vanity wouldn't have permitted him to appear before Yamamoto dripping and drenched, and besides, that would weaken the effect he would make. And he had known that he needed to come here and create a good effect, because Ulquiorra had undoubtedly told him where Starrk and the others had gone, and why. And this meant he had come straight here. He had not had time to stop back at Las Noches, and therefore he must be suffering from the pleasant illusion that she and Ichigo were still in captivity there.

Odd how quickly thoughts happened. It had been only a moment since Aizen strode in. He was still bending a genial eye on the dismayed Arrancar.

"There's my good loyal goslings," he purred, to their great confusion. "You've done just as I wished, to help save our beloved Queen. But as you see, it's all right: the Quincy plotters didn't manage to kill or imprison me, so I can tell Sir Yamamoto about the plot, myself." And he turned to the waiting Yamamoto with a look of such shattering virtue that one could almost see his halo. "Have they told you everything yet?"

"They have told me there is a new Quincy plot which they call The Enterprise," said Yamamoto guardedly. "I knew this much already. We stopped a spy trying to cross the Scottish border, some weeks ago, in May. He carried concealed letters that referred to it. Now what else have you to add?"

But Aizen was no longer listening. He had seen Orihime and Ichigo.

His face didn't change, but for an instant his eyes went blank with shock – and in that instant Orihime felt repaid for everything. She and Ichigo had Aizen in a forked stick, and he knew it.

"We just thought we'd come along, too," Ichigo said. "In case the wicked Quincies locked you up in a room or something."

Aizen all but flinched. Then he rallied. He was a sportsman if nothing else, and would play the game to the end – and play to win at any odds, too. The three of them smiled urbanely at one another, while Sir Yamamoto watched with deep interest.

Then Aizen turned his smile to include Yamamoto. "Welladay; to business, then," he suggested boldly. "We mustn't waste any more of Sir Yamamoto's valuable time. Have you told him all about everything, then?"

It was the key question, double-edged. And not knowing how much had been told, he couldn't know that everyone in the room perceived it. Nor did Ichigo and Orihime choose to enlighten him.

"Not yet," they said in unison, and with equally double meaning.

"I see," said Aizen thoughtfully, and did. He regarded them with new respect. He had, it seemed, made the mistake of underestimating them, and if there's anything more dangerous than overrating one's own intelligence, it's underrating that of one's opponent. Ichigo and Orihime didn't make that error.

"You tell him all about it," Orihime urged Aizen. "You'll do it much better than we could."

It was a neat trap. But before Aizen could fall or be pushed into it, Lord Ishida interrupted. "Wait!" he said unhappily. "Before anyone tells anything, my son and I will take our leave. We know no more about this plot than has been told already, and to be candid, we don't want to. We've done our duty in coming to you; now let's be quit of the whole matter."

Yamamoto narrowed his eyes. "You don't want to know who is involved, then? They are like to be friends of yours, you know."

"Quite," said Lord Ishida stiffly. "It would put me in an intolerable position."

"Conflict of loyalties," murmured Sir Yamamoto, looking sardonic and not particularly sympathetic. He knew no such conflicts. "You might, I gather, be tempted to drop a warning into the right ear. But then, a word to any Quincy would almost certainly reach the right ear, whether you know which it is, or not. How am I to know you won't drop that word at random?" He looked icy and implacable suddenly, and Orihime shivered, not for the first time that warm evening. Suspected traitors were tortured; that was accepted custom. Was Lord Ishida in danger of this?

He was, and he knew it; she could tell by the steady way he returned Sir Yamamoto's stare. "You must use your own judgment," he said simply. There was another long pause while the two pairs of eyes met, and Orihime had a moment to appreciate the courage and loyalty of the Ishida family.

"Go, then," said Yamamoto irritably, and Lord Ishida did so, pausing only to inform Ichigo that a bedchamber would be prepared for Mistress Orihime, and an armed servant sent to meet them outside Whitehall Palace and escort them home. Then he and Uryuu left, and Yamamoto stared after them with grudging respect. "Now, my man." He turned to Aizen. "Am I to have that information at last?"

Aizen had had time to think. "Aye, heartily, Sir," he said, and with one swift mischievous twinkle at Orihime and Ichigo, he turned to the impatient spymaster.

And with scrupulous candor he told all about The Enterprise.

Just the plot, of course. Why not? It was all Yamamoto had asked for, all he cared about. He listened with a look of a hawk watching his dinner, pouncing now and then with a penetrating question. At last, when Aizen stopped, Sir Yamamoto turned to Orihime.

"Any additions or corrections?"

Orihime glared at Aizen, who looked like a cat in the cream. "You haven't mentioned why it was you didn't report the plot as soon as you found out about it, you know."

Yamamoto nodded interestedly, but Aizen just chuckled. "You want me to confess that I wished first to make them pay me for not telling what I've learned," he said. "Very well, I do confess it: it's exactly why I waited."

"You mean," asked Ichigo carefully, "you accepted these people's hospitality, lied to them, blackmailed them, and then informed on them?"

Aizen looked hurt. "They're Quincies," he pointed out reasonably.

Yamamoto clearly agreed. But Orihime couldn't let it go. Fair was fair.

"You can't judge all Quincies by a few!" she cried. "Anyway, that doesn't justify your treachery; ethics don't work that way. If –"

She stopped. Yamamoto's brooding dark eyes were fixed on her. Ichigo, startled and alarmed, moved to stand squarely beside Orihime, because he agreed with her completely, and because he would have defended her even if Yamamoto hadn't.

"Mmm," Yamamoto said finally, and changed the subject. "Tell me, my man, just what were you planning to do with Mistress Inoue and Master Kurosaki once you'd collected your money from the plotters?"

"They've told you I locked them up, have they?" said Aizen merrily. He seemed not to notice the sudden self-conscious movement from the silent Arrancar. His face glowed with candor and rueful humor. "What a trial they've been, to be sure! Why, I planned to keep them safely behind locked doors until I'd seen you," he confessed, unabashed. "After all, why should they have the –er – credit – when all the genius, organization, and hard work was mine?"

Ichigo and Orihime looked at each other, speechless. Orihime opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. Ichigo took a deep breath and then shrugged. Aizen had outmaneuvered them after all, in the easiest and most obvious way imaginable. They knew what was coming next.

"Surely they didn't think I offered them any threat?"

He hadn't, of course. Any more than he had threatened Naak Le Vaar, in so many words. Orihime felt her face go scarlet with indignation.

"You said – you said –"

"What did he say?" asked Yamamoto, apparently not unwilling to find good cause for hanging Aizen once his usefulness was over.

"That he wouldn't throw me in the Thames before dark or have me for supper," she muttered sheepishly. Ichigo gave her a disgusted look, Aizen laughed aloud, and even Sir Yamamoto almost smiled. She sighed and gave it up. She didn't know what he'd intended, there wasn't a single thing she could prove against him, and she wasn't really sure she wanted to, after all. Though he was a rogue who undoubtedly deserved hanging any number of times over, Orihime found the idea distasteful.

So did Ichigo. Helplessly they began to laugh.

Yamamoto abruptly lost interest in all of them. He had got what he wanted. "Go!" he said, waving them out. Then he pointed at Aizen. "You will be under surveillance from now on, so I should advise you and your –er– goslings to be extremely careful. Give ye good den."

XxXxXxX

Outside, the darkness was broken by torches at every gate to Whitehall, and by the half-moon blinking from between scattering clouds. Two guards in the Ishida livery awaited Ichigo and Orihime, but they paused. There was unfinished business.

They all looked at one another uncertainly: Orihime and Ichigo, the Arrancar, even Aizen. But the awkward moment was bridged by the ever practical Loly.

"Wot about the reward?" she squawked. "Aizen-sama, yer forgot ter ask 'im for the reward!"

Aizen looked shocked. "Reward! Why, goslings, would you ask a reward for doing our simple patriotic duty?"

They nodded. They'd serve the Queen in any case, of course, but they'd much sooner have a reward for it.

"Fie, for shame!" cried Aizen, undoubtedly aware that at least two Yeomen of the Guard were listening with interest. "Have you forgotten all I've ever taught you?"

They looked confused. They remembered perfectly well all he had taught them. That was the trouble. Orihime giggled.

"Welladay," said Aizen, and steered the unwieldy group a little further from the gate. "Welladay." He fingered his ruff as if it had suddenly turned into a noose. "To tell the truth," he admitted with an endearing frankness, "even my temerity has its limits. I'll settle for a whole skin now and find my reward later."

Orihime and Ichigo had no doubt that he would. And Orihime, crazily, found herself wishing just a tiny bit that she could be there to see it. But it was all over for her. Yamamoto had been warned; the Queen would be saved from yet another assassination attempt; and Ichigo had rescued and been rescued by her. Presently they would go back to Guildford, where, with any luck, she could wheedle him not to worry her brother by squeaking beef... Oh dear, she must stop using thieves' cant!

Suddenly, ordinary language seemed flavorless. The future looked dull. She was, she discovered with astonishment, going to miss the Arrancar, and even Aizen.

Aizen it was who now delayed the farewells. He was looking around at them all rather grimly. He smiled at Orihime and Ichigo. "Oh, by the way." His voice was like brown velvet. "Who did let you out?"

There was a short anguished silence. Nel, who had stuck like a burr to Orihime's left flank, clutched harder. Rukia, fixed like a limpet to her right flank, pressed closer. Orihime felt herself blushing again, for shame. Selfish pig that she was, she had completely forgotten about them – and after they'd risked everything for her, too!

Renji broke the silence. "Them done it," he announced, pointing a dirty forefinger, secure in the knowledge that his own betrayal of Aizen was known only to Ichigo, who had sworn not to tell. And gentry coves, poor things, had to keep their word.

Aizen seemed unsurprised. "I thought as much," he said sorrowfully. "Naughty goslings; where is your loyalty?"

Ichigo choked. Aizen ignored him. "I've carefully trained you all; do you let me down?" He sighed. "Aye, you do," he decided. "You put the Queen before me. I shall have to speak to you about that one day. Still, that's forgivable... But you!" He glared at the two culprits. "You gave your first loyalty not to me, nor even to the Queen, but to Orihime! It won't do, goslings. It won't do at all. It's a pity... Nel's worthless, to be sure, but Rukia held great promise." Clearly in his mind they were as good as dead already. He shook his dark head sadly. "I cast you out," he declared. "You are from this moment no more members of my Arrancar."

Nel moaned, but Rukia jutted out her chin defiantly. And Orihime smiled.

"Good," she said. "That's most excellent; I'll just take them home with me."

"Cock's bones!" said Ichigo feelingly.

Aizen's jaw dropped. For once – for the first and last time in her life – Orihime saw him thoroughly and completely at a loss. Then he recovered himself, bowed as deeply as he had at their first meeting, and swept his plumed hat to the ground. "My felicitations, Mistress Orihime," he murmured gravely. "Your family will be delighted. Present them with my compliments, will you?"

"Cock's bones!" said Ichigo again.

Aizen smiled, a little ruefully, ignoring Ichigo now. He touched Orihime's eyebrow with his fingertip. "Fare ye well, Orihime. You would have made a fine doxy..."

Ichigo found his tongue. "Wouldn't do at all," he said firmly. "She'd never make a doxy; she's far too independent. The fact is, you're still underestimating her, Aizen, and you'd go on doing it, and just think what that could lead to! One needs practice at not underestimating Orihime. And I," he pointed out with the air of one who knows his own worth, "have had more practice than almost anyone."

"'Strewth," admitted Aizen regretfully. "Well, then –"

"Awaaah!" bawled Rukia in a howl of anguish that caused people for a hundred yards in all directions to spin around. "PURSE-EFFONY! I want Purse-Effony!"

"God's bodkins!" roared Aizen above the din. "Stubble it, you horrible child! You shall have the little monster." The screams stopped as if by magic, and Aizen smiled wickedly at Ichigo's dismayed face. "Some of the Arrancar shall deliver it tomorrow, at Lord Ishida's house," he promised. "And now, fare ye well."

"Oh, not forever," said Orihime happily. "You'll see us again. Because think of all the changes that must be made! And Ichigo and I are planning to start seeing about them just as soon as ever we can, aren't we, Ichigo? We'll begin by finding honest jobs for the Arrancar, and perhaps start a school for them, and –"

"Lackaday!" said Aizen, stricken.

XxXxXxX

**A/N:** And it's finished! Please leave a comment and let me know if you thought my posting this here was worthwhile. It took longer than I expected but I hope you enjoyed it.

And now that this one is done, please vote on the story I should work on next!

a. Operation Big Brother

b. Dear Bleach Fanfiction Authors

c. Other


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